Glass H S/ov 
Book • 3 

~7 



THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



THE LAND 
THAT IS DESOLATE 



AN ACCOUNT OF 
A TOUR IN PALESTINE 



BY 

SIR FREDERICK TREVES, Bart. 

G.G.V.O., C.B., LL.D. 

SERJEANT-SURGEON TO H.M. THE KING 
SURGEON IN ORDINARY TO H.M. QUEEN ALEXANDRA 
AUTHOR OF 

' THE OTHER SIDE OF THE LANTERN ' THE CRADLE OF THE DEEP ' ETC. 



WITH FORTY-THREE ILLUSTRATIONS 
FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR 
AND A MAP 



NEW YORK 

E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 

31 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET 
1912 





CONTENTS 




I. 


The Landing at Jaffa .... 


PAGE 
I 


II. 


The Way to Jerusalem .... 


20 


III. 


The First View of the Holy City 


• 38 


IV. 


The City of Sorrows .... 


• 42 


V. 


Within the Walls 


47 


VI. 


The Cult of the Beggar .... 


• 57 


VII. 


The Church of the Holy Sepulchre . 


66 


VIII. 


The Thief's Chapel and Calvary 


81 


IX. 


The Roof of the Church . ... 


• • 85 


X. 


The Summit of Mount Moriah . 


90 


XI. 


Olivet and the Garden .... 


102 


XII. 


Tombs and Pools ..... 


. 108 


XIII. 


The Moaning by the Wall 


• 113 


XIV. 


Bethlehem . ..... 


. 117 


XV. 


The Country of Ruth .... 


127 


XVI. 


The Plain of Jericho .... 


• 13° 


XVII. 


The Jordan and the Dead Sea . 


146 


XVIII. 


Round about Haifa ..... 


. 155 


XIX. 


Acre ........ 


167 


XX. 


The Road to Nazareth .... 


172 


XXI. 


Nazareth ....... 


. 179 



vi CONTENTS 

PAGE 

XXII. From Nazareth to the Sea of Galilee . . . 187 

XXIII. The Sea of Galilee 192 

XXIV. The Ascent to Damascus 198 

XXV. The City from the Hill 208 

XXVI. Naaman's River 216 

XXVII. The Streets of the 'Arabian Nights' City . .221 

XXVIII. The Bazaars 231 

XXIX. The Crowd . . . . ... . . . 243 

XXX. Attar of Roses . .... . 256 

XXXI. The Great Mosque ....... 260 

XXXII. A Tragic Journey 267 

Index 285 



I 




Frontispiece 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



The Dome of the Rock Frontispiece 

Port Said To face page 2 / 

Jaffa : from Roof of House of Simon the 

Tanner ....... ,,,,,, 12 

Jaffa : from Garden of the Monastery of the 

House of Tabitha . . . . . ,,,,,, 16 

The Train from Jaffa to Jerusalem . . t> 22 

The First View of Jerusalem ... „ 40 

The Golden Gate, Jerusalem : from the inside „ ,, ,, 50 

A Street in Jerusalem . . . . . „ „ ,, 50 

A Street in Jerusalem ..... ,,,,,, 54 

A Street in Jerusalem . . . . . „ 60. 

Church of the Holy Sepulchre ... 72 
Jerusalem : View from Roof of Church of 

the Holy Sepulchre . . . . ,,,,,, 86 

Houses in the Temple Area, Jerusalem . ,, ft 94 

The Dome of the Rock . . . . . 98 

Mount of Olives ...... 100, 

Mount of Olives ...... „ 102, 

Corner of the Garden of Gethsemane . ,, „ 106 

Walls of Jerusalem near the Jaffa Gate, 

SHOWING THE DlTCH . . . . . Io6 

Jerusalem : from the Mount of Olives, showing 

the Golden Gate and Dome of the Rock „ ,, ,, 108 
View from Inside the Walls of Jerusalem, 

showing the Dome of the Rock . . . „ ,, ,, no 

The Tombs of the Kings, Jerusalem . . ,,,, ,, 112, 

Bethlehem : the Church of the Nativity . „ „ 120 



viii 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Bethany To face page 130 v 

The Road to Jericho ..... ,,,,,, 134 - 

Doubting Castle, on the Road to Jericho . „ ,, 134 

The Valley of Achor, on the Way to Jericho, 

SHOWING THE MONASTERY OF St. GEORGE . ,, ,, ,, I36. 

Excavations of Ancient Jericho . . . ,, ,, 140 , 

Walls of Ancient Jericho .... 144 

The Jordan ....... ,,,,,, 148 

The Dead Sea . . . . . . ,> ,,,, 152 

Acre, as approached from Haifa . . . ,, ,, ,,168 

Walls of Acre ...... ,,,,,, 170 

Nazareth ....... „ „ „ 177" 

A Street in Nazareth ..... ,,,,,, 180 

Mary's Well at Nazareth . . . . ,, ,,184 

Distant View of Tiberias and Sea of Galilee ,, ,, ,, 190 

Tiberias ........ •>,,,, 196 

Damascus: from the Hill . . . . ,,,,,, 208, 

Abraham's Oak, Damascus .... ,,,,,, 216 

The River Abana : just beyond Damascus . ,, ,, „ 220 

A Street in Damascus . . . . . ,,,,,, 222 

Damascus; the Old City Wall . . . ,,,,,, 226 

The East Gate of Damascus .... ,,,,,, 232 . 

MAP 

The Holy Land ...... „ „ 284 



THE 



LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 

i 

THE LANDING AT JAFFA 

' In the name of God glorious and Almighty. He that 
will pass over the Sea to the City of Jerusalem may go 
many ways, both by sea and land, according to the 
country that he cometh from.' Thus wrote Sir John 
Maundeville, Knight, a native of St. Albans in England. 
It was one of the few truths that he disclosed and may 
on that account be treasured. 

Now although it is common knowledge that Jerusalem 
is in Palestine, there are persons of some enlightenment 
who are a little doubtful as to the precise situation of the 
country itself. They are familiar with the isolated map 
of the Holy Land and know that it is shaped like a slice 
of bread, whereof the straight crust stands for the coast- 
line, and the soft, gnawed edge for the inland boundaries. 
This familiarity is possibly due to the fact that when a 
schoolboy is set to draw a map, as a holiday task, he 
always selects Palestine, partly because of its extreme 
ease of outline, and partly because the selection may 

B 



2 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 

carry with it a beneficial suggestion of early piety and 
therefore count for righteousness. Where to place the 
territory is another matter, and I believe I am conveying 
information when I say that the Holy Land forms the 
blind end of the Mediterranean and that its shores are 
washed by the same waters that break beneath the 
gambling-rooms at Monte Carlo and make delectable the 
promenade at Nice. 

To return to the shrewd saying of Sir John. It is 
the custom of most to reach Palestine by taking ship at 
Port Said and going to Jaffa, a port described in the 
Bible dictionaries as being on the border of Dan. It is 
a passage that appeals as much to the imagination as does 
any the Knight of St. Albans ventured upon. From 
Port Said to the land of Canaan ! From the very new to 
the very old ! Among towns of any pretence in the 
world Port Said is probably the newest and rawest. It 
was called into being by a very modern engineering 
enterprise. Not only is every building of it new, but the 
actual land upon which it is founded may claim to be of 
yesterday, since it has been, for the most part, gathered 
in from the sea. Dig beneath the bricks and stones of 
any town of note and the spade unearths remains of pre- 
existing men, but dig beneath the foundations of Port 
Said and there is nothing but the Nile mud of seasons 
still remembered, the sand still salt from the sea, the shells 
still bright with the colours that even now mark the 
drift on the beach. 

Across a bight of the sea, north-east from the Canal 
Port, is the land of the ancient Israelites, the land that 
first crept out of the darkness at the dawn of the history 



THE LANDING AT JAFFA 



3 



of mankind. Port Said is a by-product of the Suez Canal 
Company, while Jaffa was a settlement that the Phoeni- 
cians founded in the land of the Philistines. The journey 
between the two places occupies some twelve hours and is 
appropriately made at night, so that the traveller, whose 
last sight of the new world takes the form of a turbine- 
driven liner, ablaze with electric lights, may sleep and 
dream and on awakening come upon that port in the old 
world from which Jonah started on his journey to 
Tarshish by boat. 

He must be dull who does not look eagerly at sunrise 
for the first sight of this venerable country. As the 
horizon brightens there will appear the Holy Land, the 
land about which he read when he was first able to read, 
the place where the Bible was written and where the 
great religion of the world arose. It seems a land as 
remote from the world of to-day as that land of once- 
upon-a-time where the children's tales commenced. What 
does he expect to see emerge from the dull shadow far 
ahead of the ship's prow ? What will he behold that 
will make this land unlike any other land in the world ? 
He can hardly expect to find a company of armed Philis- 
tines patrolling the beach, or to hear from city walls the 
sound of sackbut and psaltery, or to see the smoke of a 
burnt -offering rising to the skies. He expects something 
uncommon, but unless his mood be very matter-of-fact he 
must prepare for a great disillusion. 

There are few first glimpses of famous spots that 
are not disappointing. The first sight of Niagara, for 
example, arouses a feeling of actual resentment in that the 
view is so tamely like the pictures and photographs which 

B 2 



THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



have been for years familiar. I can, for my own part, 
only recall three occasions when the actual view far ex- 
ceeded the anticipation of it. These were the first glimpse 
of Venice as seen from a ship's deck at the dawn of a 
summer's day, the first sight of the Grand Canon of the 
Colorado from the brink at Bright Angle, and the first 
sudden view of the Taj Mahal at Agra. 

On nearing Jaffa in the early morning what is there 
in sight ? Merely a low line of bare coast, not only 
treeless and blank but also colourless, for the sun is rising 
behind it. It is a land so stripped of every feature or 
characteristic as to be merely an antithesis to the sea. It 
is a coast — nothing more — a coast reduced to the simplest 
possibilities, so that it is as lacking in individuality as 
a coastline on a map. As the light increases the rudi- 
mental bank becomes rose-coloured, while a line of white 
foam marks it off from the leaden sea. Of this new earth 
indeed it is possible to say little more than that it is not 
water. It seems to befit the primordial account in the 
Book of Genesis when God said, ' Let the dry land appear : 
and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth ; and 
the gathering together of the waters called he Seas.' 
The apparent absence of vegetation suggests that here at 
least the work of creation had proceeded no further. It 
comes to pass, therefore, that the first visible part of the 
land of Canaan can be merely described as ' dry land.' 

In a while Jaffa is reached, where the steamer, with no 
more ceremony than is expressed by the mate's command 
'leggo,' drops anchor about a mile from the beach. The 
ancient name of Jaffa was Joppa, 'and you shall under- 
stand,' writes the exact Maundeville, that it is one of 



THE LANDING AT JAFFA 



5 



the oldest towns of the world, for it was founded before 
Noah's flood.' The antediluvian city stands on a low, 
whale-backed hill which it covers from its summit to the 
water's edge. It is a very modern place, differing in no 
notable feature from fifty other Mediterranean seaports. 
On its crown, like the spike of a helmet, is the spire of a 
Roman Catholic church. Then follows a medley of white, 
brown, and yellow walls, of green sun shutters and red 
roofs. Far away behind the town some hills are to be 
seen. These are the mountains of Judea looking toward 
Bethel. 

There were two English ladies on the steamer who 
appeared to view the scene with some mistrust. They 
were both old, bent, white-haired, and given to mumbling. 
They both wore spectacles. About their shoulders were 
wrapped woollen knitted shawls, while their dress was 
daringly Victorian. They had no doubt come from some 
hibernating English village where one could picture either 
of the two with the wrap over her head waiting at the 
gate of a garden of hollyhocks for the village postman. 
Although they were no more fit to travel than a couple 
of pet sheep they had come to see the Holy Land and so 
to realise the dream of their lives. It is easy to imagine 
with what discussion in the village the pilgrimage had 
been initiated, and with what sinking of heart the ancient 
serving maid, her mind full of wrecks and robbers, had 
received their last instructions as to the fowls and the cat. 
I had seen these two old ladies a night or so before in a 
drinking saloon at Port Said, in a glaring room, sultry 
with smoke and the reek of spirits, where red- faced men, 
infidels and heretics, sat at round tables, talked and 



6 



THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



wrangled, played poker or tossed with dice in the hot 
blare of a band hammering out music-hall tunes. The 
two gentle old creatures huddled together in the smoke 
were as much out of place as a nun at a prize-fight, and 
the proprietor of the saloon was at a loss to know what 
to do with them. They had been advised to dine ashore, 
and, meeting in the street a ' nice kind boy, ' they had asked 
him to recommend a respectable hotel. The ' nice kind 
boy ' had naturally taken them to the establishment 
where he would get most baksheesh for his introduction. 
They were, however, soon directed aright and very 
appropriately housed. 

Now from the deck of the ship they were taking their 
first look at the Holy Land. On either side steamers were 
noisily discharging cargo, around the ship was a crowd of 
boats full of screaming men, agents for tours, touts from 
hotels, and boys selling postcards. The most conspicuous 
object ashore was a large advertisement of a popular 
whisky. What they had expected to come upon I do 
not know, but it was evidently not this modern Babel. 
They drew aside, looking at one another almost re- 
proachfully, but saying nothing, as if they had been 
shocked into silence by this shattering of their dream. 

There is no harbour at Jaffa, but in its place a dis- 
orderly reef of black, jagged rocks, running parallel with 
the beach. These make a rude breakwater under the lee 
of which small boats find a shelter. A narrow gap in the 
middle of this stockade of stones provides access to the 
open sea. It is the dash through this gap that gives 
the final terror to the process of landing. 

Jaffa is celebrated for at least two things : its excellent 



THE LANDING AT JAFFA 



7 



oranges and its infamous landing. The landing is no 
worse than that from any open roadstead where the water 
is shallow and where the voyager has to make an ill- 
protected beach. The boats are long, six-oared galleys, 
manned by a crew of nine men. Of these men it is safe 
to say that finer boatmen are not to be found in the 
Mediterranean, nor, probably, in any other sea. It is the 
business of their lives to land passengers and goods all 
the year through, although with strong westerly or north- 
westerly winds so heavy a sea swings in that it is unsafe 
for any boat to venture beyond the rocks. Thus it is 
that at certain times of the year landing at Jaffa is 
impossible for days or even for weeks. We met a young 
lady in the town — the daughter of an English official 
there, who was returning home from Port Said. When 
she arrived off Jaffa no landing was possible, so she was 
carried on to Beyrout. There she waited for a south- 
going steamer of the same company, but was again carried 
past Jaffa and landed once more at Port Said. In the 
third attempt she succeeded in getting ashore with a 
wetting ; but the whole excursion occupied her a fortnight, 
whereas the normal passage from Port Said to Jaffa is 
twelve hours ! 

I gathered that the landing at Jaffa is classified 
locally under three types which are defined as ' no good,' 
' all ri,' and ' very nice.' We landed when it was ' all ri ' 
— which meant that getting ashore was possible but un- 
pleasant. The steamer rolls from side to side, not only 
immoderately but apparently from mere wantonness. 
The result is that the passenger, awaiting his turn on the 
top of the ladder, sees the galley raised at one moment 



8 



THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



to the level of his outstretched arms and then dropped 
to such a depth that the upturned faces of the crew are 
below his feet. The tourist who is ' accustomed to boats 
and understands the SGcl, clS well as the tourist who has 
initiative, will meet with trouble at this j uncture if they 
take any action on their own account. I would advise 
the passenger at this crisis to commit his spirit to heaven 
and his body to Thomas Cook & Son, inasmuch as that 
firm has reduced landing at Jaffa to a reliable art. Let 
him be passive as a parcel, let him read a book or con- 
template the sky. He will find himself suddenly lifted 
off his feet by four massive arms, he will then experience 
the sensation of being in a fast descending lift, and will 
next be aware that he is sitting on a seat in the boat with 
a silly smile on his face. People will fall on him, tread on 
him and sit on him, but he is on his way to the shore, 
and, as the helmsman repeatedly assures him, it is ' all ri.' 

Then comes the row to the land, a passage which is 
conducted with great spirit. It is when the tourist is 
well away from the ship that he can experience 

' The heave and the halt and the hurl and the crash 
of the comber wind-hounded.' 

Ahead is the black, savage palisade of rocks upon which 
the sea is breaking with the noise of thunder. The whole 
jagged line is white with foam, while the little gap for 
which the boat is making seems to be choked by a howling 
eddy and is half hidden by sleet-like spray. As the pass 
is neared the din becomes portentous, the sea is lashed 
into maniacal ferocity, wet gusts strike the traveller 
in the face and he appears to be drifting to destruction. 



THE LANDING AT JAFFA 



Then in a moment the boat is lifted up, as it were from 
beneath, is rushed hissing through the passage, and is 
poured together with the sea that bears it into the harbour 
just as water is poured out of a bucket. 

For those who are not going ashore the disembarka- 
tion process is interesting to watch because the cargoes 
are so varied. Into a shore-boat that is moving up and 
down like the piston of an engine will be lowered a ward- 
robe and an immense looking-glass, followed by a live 
gazelle. Then will come two or three indefinite women 
with their heads tied up, a wooden bedstead, some fowls, 
a Greek priest, baskets of food and a red and blue box 
covered with Arabic inscriptions. This goes on until the 
steamer seems reasonably empty. 

The beach at Jaffa is sandy. Straight out of the 
sand rise the walls of the town. The little natural boat 
harbour where the passenger lands is interesting, for here 
also was landed the cedar wood from Lebanon which was 
used in the building of Solomon's Temple. This timber 
was ' sent from Tyre by the order of Hiram, King of 
Tyre, and came down the coast in rafts, or, as the 
Book of the Chronicles words it, 'in flotes.' With the 
timber the King sent ' a cunning man endued with 
understanding,' so it may be hoped that the rafts were 
got ashore in a seamanlike manner. From the beach the 
pieces of wood were carried up winding paths along the 
hillside and thence to Jerusalem. While we were at 
Jaffa it was of interest to note that many camels and 
many men were employed all day carrying planks of wood 
and other building material up from the beach. In every 
twisting lane that led through the town men with planks 



io THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



and camels with planks were ever to be seen. All this 
wood was going up to Jerusalem, but it was not cedar 
wood from Lebanon, and it was being dispatched to the 
City of David by goods train. 

There is another episode connected with this little 
haven which has a more human interest. One day very 
long ago, according to the old writing, there came down 
to the beach a haggard man, a stranger, clad in unfamiliar 
garb, who, breathless and excited, inquired for a boat 
going to Tarshish. Such a boat lay in the harbour ; he 
climbed hurriedly over the side of it, paid for his passage, 
and then, throwing himself down exhausted in the bottom 
of the craft, was soon fast asleep. This was Jonah in the 
act of escaping from the country. No one now knows 
where Tarshish was except that it was a long way off. 
' To go to Tarshish ' seems to have been equivalent in 
ancient days to the modern seaman's expression ' to go 
foreign.' 

The story of Jonah is in many ways curious, especially 
the end of the narrative, when the prophet goes to curse 
Nineveh and to foretell its destruction. We see him, an 
irritable melancholiac, walking out of the city 'very angry ' 
because the spell does not work, and then comfort- 
ably settling himself down in a shady booth at a safe 
distance from the walls so that he might obtain a good 
view of the debacle when the great city crumbled to 
pieces. 

The traveller when he first places his foot upon the 
Holy Land, as represented by the little pier at Jaffa, finds 
himself involved in a crowd of miscellaneous people who 
are rushing about as aimlessly as ants in a disturbed ants' 



THE LANDING AT JAFFA n 

nest. When he has elbowed his way clear of the mob he 
discovers that he is in the narrow street which leads up 
from the quay. The road is paved in a manner and is 
full of mud, but the larger cobbles act as stepping-stones 
whereby he is able to avoid the masses of vegetable refuse 
and discarded rags which are strewed in his path. The 
street is busy with human beings, and as he blends with the 
throng he feels that he has become one of the people of the 
Land of Promise. No one heeds his presence nor regards 
him as a stranger because, according to Baedeker, 20,000 
pilgrims pass through Jaffa every year, while, according 
to the shipping agent, no less than 8000 tourists land at 
this port during the very brief Palestine season. 

The folk in the street are of many kinds — men in brown 
blankets and in striped blankets, men in tarboushes 
and in white turbans, men in red jackets with blue bag 
trousers, wild creatures in sheepskins, veiled women in 
black, solemn personages in dark academical gowns, and 
cheerful folk in rags. The mud in the way is kept churned 
to a creaking tune by naked feet, by scarlet shoes, by 
black slippers and by machine-made boots. Mixed up 
with this multitude are many camels and donkeys and a 
few desultory sheep. These animals draw their feet out 
of the mud with a sound like that of a cork coming out 
of a bottle. The variety of smells is as bewildering to 
the nose as is discordant music to the ear. The dragoman 
will assure you with pride that these odours are more 
acute and penetrating in the height of the summer, but 
the statement baffles a normal imagination. 

The streets traversed are narrow and steep. They 
ramble and intertwine like the branches of a bramble 



12 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



bush. The traveller passes under arches, under over- 
hanging windows, under leaning buildings that nod across 
the road like willow trees. He finds himself eddying 
about among such an indescribable medley of houses of 
every shape that Jaffa seems to resolve itself into a kind 
of builders' scrap-heap whereon have been cast all the 
discarded or misfit dwellings of a century. Yet this 
is the town that Antony gave to Cleopatra as a lover's 
gift. 

The breathless and faltering tourist who, by exercising 
the agility of the gazelle, has just managed to keep his 
dragoman in sight, now asks that invaluable man where 
he is being taken to. The dragoman replies that he is 
taking him to the house of Simon the Tanner. This has 
a hospitable and restful sound which is very comforting. 
It will be remembered that St. Peter ' tarried many days 
in Joppa with one Simon, a tanner,' that Simon's house 
was ' by the seaside,' and that it was on the roof of the 
house that St. Peter fell into a trance. Now the house 
in question is in a poor quarter of Jaffa. It is not by the 
seaside, but is, on the contrary, near the summit of the 
hill, on that slope of it which looks seawards. Moreover, 
it is not a house but a mosque, and, further, it is quite safe 
to say that to no man is known the site of the tanner's 
dwelling. Eastern houses of the type a tanner would 
occupy are of so flimsy a kind that they would barely 
survive a lifetime. Many centuries have passed away 
since St. Peter was at Joppa. During these years the 
town has been besieged, laid low, and burnt to the ground, 
not once but many times. When Bertrandon de la Broc- 
quiere, first esquire-carver to that most redoubted lord, 



THE LANDING AT JAFFA 



Philip of Burgundy, visited Jaffa in 1432 he found that 
place ' entirely destroyed, having only a few tents covered 
with reeds, whither pilgrims retire to shelter them- 
selves from the heat of the sun.' It can hardly be 
supposed that for wellnigh two thousand years, marked as 
they have been by recurrent desolation, a non-Christian 
people would be at pains to preserve the site of a humble 
dwelling with the history of which they were totally un- 
concerned. A sacred site, however, is a valuable property 
in Palestine ; so a site there must be, and thus it is that 
the curious can visit the house of Simon upon payment of 
one piastre per person to its Moslem caretaker. It is 
this one piastre per person and not the sacredness of the 
spot that keeps green the memory of St. Peter's friend 
in Jaffa. It may be said that the site shown to the 
tourist is not undisputed even in Jaffa, for the authorities 
of the Latin hospice maintain that their house is built 
upon the exact spot occupied by the elusive tanner. 

The pathway to the one-piastre house is singularly 
rich in both mud and garbage. It passes near to a 
fragment of the old city wall which, although of no great 
antiquity, is one of the few ancient relics in Jaffa. The 
' Maison de Simon ' is represented by a mean little mosque 
which is quite modern and quite dirty. It suggests a wine 
vault rather than a sacred building. About it is a 
picturesque yard with a well and a fig tree. A few stone 
steps lead to the top of the mosque, from whence a 
generous view of the town and of the sea is to be obtained. 
The visitor looks down upon small flat roofs capped with 
white domes like inverted basins, and can obtain a glimpse 
of those little sequestered courts which hide behind the 



14 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



houses of the poor. Moreover, there lies at his feet the 
whole scene of Andromeda's adventure. 

The story of this ill-used woman is little more than 
an episode in a family brawl. It appears that Andro- 
meda's mother, on some occasion, ventured the remark 
that she thought she was better looking than Juno. This 
not unfeminine reflection threw Juno's brother, Neptune, 
into such a state of unreasoning passion that he proceeded 
to destroy the estate of Andromeda's parents with all the 
forces at his disposal, including a sea monster. As the 
value of Andromeda's property was rapidly deteriorating, 
Jupiter, the head of the family, was consulted. He gave 
it as his opinion that the only way to stop Neptune from 
further ' goings on ' was to chain Andromeda to a rock 
and allow her to be devoured by the monster. It was 
further proposed that this inconsiderate sentence should 
be carried out at Jaffa. 

It was to one of the rocks which form the present boat 
harbour that the unfortunate young woman was fastened. 
A more vapid and unromantic scene for so pathetic a 
drama could not have been selected. It would have been 
as fitting if the poor lady had been chained to one of the 
brown rocks which are exposed at low tide at Margate. 

Fortunately at the critical moment Perseus appeared 
and stabbed the dragon in the right shoulder blade with a 
dagger. As we have collateral evidence, furnished by 
Sir John Maundeville, that the monster measured eighty 
feet round the chest, this wound does not appear to be 
quite satisfying from either a dramatic or a surgical point 
of view. So we rely rather upon another account which 
says that Perseus turned the amphibian into stone. Of 



THE LANDING AT JAFFA 15 



course Perseus, according to the etiquette of the time, 
married Andromeda. 

The moral of the story appears to be directed generally 
against the unwise habit of ' saying things ' about people. 
The guide books state that even down to the Middle Ages 
the chains with which Andromeda was bound were shown 
— on payment of a small fee no doubt — to the tourists 
of the period. It will be evident therefore that Jaffa 
has, from quite early days, been seriously concerned in 
the preservation of ancient monuments. 

I venture to think that the most interesting spot in 
Jaffa is a certain corner of the Public Garden where 
three roads meet. So ancient are these tracks that they 
are probably among the very earliest settled paths made 
by the feet of men. They have been traversed by the 
Canaanite and the Phoenician, by the Philistine and the 
Roman soldier, by the Paynim and the Crusader. That 
road of the three which turns southwards goes to Gaza, 
one of the five great cities of the Philistines, the city whose 
gates Samson carried upon his shoulders to the top of 
a hill that is before Hebron. The middle way leads to 
Jerusalem, and it may be claimed for it that it is the most 
travelled road in all the world. The track that passes 
northwards is the road to Shechem, the ancient capital 
of Samaria. 

A curious blending of the Bible with the local directory 
is afforded by the information that the Ottoman Bank lies 
on the road to Gaza. 

The outskirts of Jaffa are exceedingly pleasant, since 
the town, except where it fronts the sea, is hemmed 
around by orange gardens, and the green of the orange 



16 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



tree never falters nor grows dim. The usual drive is 
to the Russian monastery along a quiet lane shut in with 
hedges of prickly pear. The monastery garden, with its 
paved alleys and solemn paths, is a place of peace. Here 
are the sycamore of the Bible, the locust tree, the 
oleander, and the olive. Many cypresses grow in the 
garden as well as many palms of the humbler kind. From 
among the shadows of the trees, and across the vast pool 
of unfathomable green dotted with gold which marks the 
orange grove, is the white immaculate city of Jaffa. As 
seen from the monastery close it is a city of enchantment, 
the unspeakable city in whose streets still floats the 
perfume of the cedar wood of Tyre and above whose 
roofs St. Peter saw the gleaming vessel descend from 
heaven. It would be well if the town could ever remain 
afar off and unapproachable, since long before the poor 
bedraggled walls are reached the adorable fabric 
vanishes. 

The monastery church is of necessity erected upon a 
sacred spot — upon the site of the house of Tabitha. For 
this there is no ancient authority and no modern evidence 
except the casual impression of the builder. Moreover, 
in the garden is a rock-hewn tomb with a mosaic floor 
which is exhibited, without a blush and without any 
faltering of speech, as the burial-place of Dorcas. The 
claim, daring as it is, would probably not deceive a 
child of six. 

Assuredly somewhere in or about Jaffa stood the 
house of Dorcas, the woman ' who was full of good works 
and almsdeeds.' The story of what took place in the 
house some two thousand years ago is one of the many 



THE LANDING AT JAFFA 17 



terse, intensely vivid narratives which make the Bible 
so remarkable as a literary work. The words run only to 
a line or so and yet we can see that upper chamber of the 
little house in which the body of the dead woman was laid. 
Above her stands the austere, absorbed figure of the Man 
of God. He is engrossed in the contemplation of the kindly 
face on the pillow, while round him crowd a number of 
weeping women who insist upon showing him ' the coats 
and garments which Dorcas made,' thrusting each 
admired specimen of her needlework under his solemn 
eyes. He turns them all from the room, closes the door, 
and kneels down by the side of the figure on the bier. 

If ever the story of Jaffa comes to be told it will 
provide a narrative of battle and siege, of plague, pesti- 
lence and famine, of murder and burning that can have 
few equals in the hideous chronicles of war. The last 
scene was not so long ago, only so far back indeed as 
the spring of 1799, when the progress of Napoleon was 
being opposed by England and Turkey. Leaving Desaix 
and his Ethiopian supernumeraries to hold Egypt, he 
determined to accomplish the conquest of Syria and the 
East, to raise in revolt the Christians of the Lebanon and 
Armenia, overthrow the Turkish power in Asia, and then 
march either on Constantinople or Delhi. 1 What did 
happen was this. Bonaparte marched on Jaffa and, on 
March 6, in spite of a spirited defence, he took it by storm. 
With the town was taken a vast host of men. ' What 
could he do with these 2500 or 3000 prisoners ? They 
could not be trusted to serve with the French ; besides 



1 Life of Napoleon I, by John H. Rose, vol. i. p. 201. (London. 1902.) 

c 



18 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



the provisions scarcely sufficed for Bonaparte's own men, 
who began to complain loudly at sharing any with Turks 
and Albanians. They could not be sent away to Egypt, 
there to spread discontent ; and only 300 Egyptians were 
so sent away. Finally, on the demand of his generals 
and troops, the remaining prisoners were shot down on 
the seashore.' 1 Had even Jaffa seen before such a sight 
as this — over two thousand men murdered in cold blood 
at the foot of their own town ! It would seem as if the 
waves of a century would not suffice to wash the stain 
of blood out of the yellow sands. 

After Jaffa came the march to Acre and the assault 
upon that town. But the English were already there and 
had made stout ravelins and ramparts out of the ancient 
walls. At the beginning of May, Bonaparte made a 
desperate attempt to carry Acre by storm. He was 
repulsed. He attacked again and again, but failed to 
turn the British out of what he termed their ' mud hole.' 
As the month wore on a new ally came to the help of the 
men in the mud hole in the form of the plague. Death 
was soon busy among the French. Although a breach 
had been made in the wall many battalions refused to 
advance towards it, because they had to walk over the 
swollen and putrid bodies of so many of their comrades. 
On May 20 Bonaparte gave the order to retreat. 

Then began the march back to Jaffa, and among 
marches fearful in history this is one of the most terrible. 
The plague marched with the column. Men fell on all 
sides ; troopers dropped from their saddles, dead ; many 

1 Life of Napoleon I, by John H. Rose, vol. i. p. 203. (London. 1902.) 



THE LANDING AT JAFFA 



committed suicide as they walked, for to tramp on was 
only to prolong misery and pain, to drop behind was to be 
murdered, so a bullet through the brain was the best way 
home. Every horse was employed in carrying a sick 
or a wounded man, while the looked-for hospitality at 
Jaffa was furnished by a lazar house. 

The sufferings of the sick in that town must have been 
beyond imagining. A number of those who were able to 
be moved were taken away in ships, while 800 were con- 
veyed to Egypt in carts and litters across the desert. 
Those left behind were left to die, yet when the English 
Commodore arrived at Jaffa a little later he found ' seven 
poor fellows still alive.' Still alive ! There is meaning in 
those words. Still alive after a fruitless campaign, after 
helping to shoot down 2000 unarmed men on the beach, 
after the fetid trenches at Acre, after the death-march 
back by the sea, after the delirium of the plague house, 
after the endless procession of dead men carried out on 
litters to the tolling of bells. Still alive ! 



c 2 



II 



THE WAY TO JERUSALEM 

The journey from Jaffa to Jerusalem is most conveniently 
made by rail. The distance by this route is fifty-four 
miles, and as the train occupies three and three-quarter 
hours in the passage the speed is such as to allow the 
traveller a generous opportunity of surveying the country 
traversed. The train is not only slow but the engine 
appears to labour exceedingly and to need a considerable 
rest at each station in order to recover its breath. As 
Jerusalem lies 2500 feet above the level of the sea, much 
of the journey is up hill, and this ascent the engine 
accomplishes with the gasps of a wearied but determined 
asthmatic. The details of the journey and of all other 
journeys are arranged by a dragoman, and I should like 
here to record my indebtedness to the dragoman who 
accompanied us, and to whose kindness, intelligence, and 
intimate knowledge of the country and its history we owe 
much. 

The station at Jaffa is small, noisy, and confused, as 

well as servilely commonplace. Strangers who expect 

that a station in the Holy Land should present some 

B iblical or Canaanitish feature will be disappointed, since 

20 



THE WAY TO JERUSALEM 



the terminus differs in no essential from a station on a 
local line in Italy or France. The carriages make no 
pretence to reach beyond that humble standard of com- 
fort which attains throughout Palestine. The native 
passengers in the third-class carriages lean dangerously 
out of the window most of the way, and as they appear 
to be not only acquainted with one another but with all 
the countrymen within hailing distance of the line and 
all the folk at every railway station, there is a considerable 
outpouring of speech before the journey ends. 

After the pretty garden suburbs and the orange groves 
of Jaffa are passed the train enters upon the Plain of 
Sharon. This level plain extends from Jaffa to Mount 
Carmel and from the foothills of Judea to the sea. It 
is diligently if ineffectually cultivated. Many square 
miles are given up to grass lands, but the vaster area is 
covered by ploughed fields in the winter and by fields 
of corn in the spring. It was at the end of January 
that we went up to Jerusalem, at a time when the whole 
plain was green with rising blades of wheat. About the 
villages are fig and olive trees, with an occasional palm or 
cypress, and a tangle of poor bush. There are eucalyptus 
trees around the stations, but with these exceptions the 
vast flat, so far as the eye can reach, is practically treeless. 
Such hedges as exist are mostly of prickly cactus, a sour, 
wizened, and unnatural plant which is at best a miserable 
substitute for the hawthorn or the elder bush of the 
Dorset lane. The villages passed are secretive-looking 
clumps of flat-topped huts made, it would seem, of a 
chocolate-coloured mud and decorated with litter and 
refuse. Such roads as exist look like brown veins 



22 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



traversing the green. The Plain of Sharon is emphatically 
not beautiful. Indeed, from its vastness and monotony, it 
is very wearisome. It is as level as a billiard table and 
almost as smooth and as uniformly green. One thinks of 
the Rose of Sharon and imagines banks and terraces 
covered with some such transcendental crimson rambler as 
runs riot in old Persian embroideries ; but the Rose of 
Sharon the learned say is no other than the sickly 
narcissus. 

In the spring — that is, from early March to early May — 
the plain and indeed the whole country are covered, 
we are assured, with flowers both wondrous and brilliant. 
Now to those who visit Palestine at other times than the 
spring these flowers become somewhat of a burden. The 
out-of-season tourist hears probably more of them than 
the spring tourist sees of them. They recur like a 
universal chorus when applied to a dozen different songs. 
If any comment be made upon the uncouthness of a spot 
there is ever the answer : ' But you should see it when 
the flowers are out.' If the poverty of the land be 
criticised there is the ready reply : ' But you should see 
it when the flowers are out.' Yet a difficulty stands in 
the way of witnessing this spectacle. 

There are three seasons in the Holy Land, viz. : the 
winter, when the land is bare and the roads are mud ; the 
summer and autumn, when the land is bare and the roads 
are dust ; and the spring, when all is assumed to be 
beautiful. The heavy rains, the 'former rains' of the 
Bible, come in the winter. 'The latter rains,' which 
are light, fall in March and April. After May follow the 
months of heat and drought, when the land dries up, when 



THE WAY TO JERUSALEM 23 



the vegetation crackles like a parchment, and the earth is 
baked like a brick. It is obvious, therefore, that the 
spring is the time of election. It is the time of the flowers, 
but it is also the time of the tourists. Now the tourists 
do not come in small, awed and devout parties — they come 
in ravening hordes ; not in companies of ten but in hosts of 
a hundred. Since the Christian Era Palestine has been 
accustomed to pilgrims of all kinds, of all nationalities, 
and of all degrees, but the American tripper who, landing 
in his strength from a leviathan ' pleasure cruise,' seeks 
to ' do the Holy Land ' in three or four days, is ' le dernier 
cri.' Like an explosive substance, he needs room. Sir 
Rider Haggard, in his charming ' Winter Pilgrimage,' 
alludes to ' a gigantic cheap American trip numbering over 
five hundred souls.' As the country is very small it is evi- 
dent that a humble party of two or three is in danger of 
being swept away by the advance inland of such a host as 
this. It comes to pass, therefore, that when the flowers, on 
the one hand, are tried in the balance against the tourists 
on the other, the weight is with the latter ; so that the 
pilgrim who wishes to come and go in peace must content 
himself with either the ' former rains ' or the drought, 
for the spring is denied him. 

To come back again to the train. The Plain of 
Sharon, although it may fail to delight the eye, has this 
more solid attraction, that it is a true part of the land 
of the Philistines, and that as we see it now so did they 
see it then. This, in a country of imposture and make- 
believe, is something to lay hold of. There is still the 
same green flat stretching between the blue hills of Judea 
and the pansy-coloured sea. No doubt in the days when 



24 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



Abner, son of Ner, the captain of the host, looked from 
the heights for signs of the Philistine camp the land was 
more deeply wooded, richer and more luxuriant. It is 
now threadbare, poor, and spiritless, for the rule of Turkey 
has afflicted the country with a kind of social and political 
malaria. 

Looking across the plain from the carriage window, 
there may not be a modern building in sight. The 
primitive villages differ probably but little from the 
village of the days of Christ, if only the kerosene tins could 
be turned into water jars of earthenware. The shepherd 
and the sheep are the same as those who were present in 
the eyes of the Good Shepherd and who belong to the 
time when Sharon was ' a fold of flocks.' Here and there 
a belated man is ploughing with two oxen. The plough he 
guides is a tough crook of oak shod with iron, and those 
who are learned in these things say that this is the plough 
of the time of the Parable of the Sower. On the ancient 
roadway — a mere track of foot-stamped mud — a woman 
will be riding on a donkey ; the outline of her head is very 
gracious as it is seen through the hood she wears. She 
might have come from some old Italian picture showing 
the journeyings of the Saints. There are strings of 
camels and men walking in single file, just as they do in 
ancient wall paintings, the camels with so supercilious a 
stride and the men with so weary a bearing that the 
camels seem to be driving the men into captivity. The 
scene is so in harmony with the setting appropriate 
to certain events of Scripture history that it would not 
be incongruous if a marauding party of Philistines was 
to be seen hurrying across the plain. 



THE WAY TO JERUSALEM 25 



These Philistines were a slashing and hardy folk, and 
it would be well for the country if a new colony of Philis- 
tines, free from Turkish control, could make a present- 
day settlement on the coast. The Philistines of old were 
sea rovers who, sailing out from Crete, or from the ^Egean 
Islands, descended upon Canaan as the Danes descended 
upon East Anglia. They were a non-Semitic people, 
superior in culture and enterprise to the Hebrew settlers 
who already occupied the land. They established them- 
selves in the level country which lies between Carmel and 
the frontier of Egypt, and in this land of Peleshet they 
built five fortified outposts — namely at Ekron, Ashdod, 
Ascalon, Gaza, and Gath. From pirates they became 
cattle raiders and robbers of threshing-floors ; from mere 
buccaneers they became merchant adventurers and men 
of crafts. They kept up a constant guerilla warfare with 
the old settlers, the much worried people of Israel, and 
could bring into the field, on occasion, not a mere 
rabble of brigand carles but a mighty and brilliant army, 
such as gathered at Michmash which is eastward from 
Beth-aven. 

In this army there were the pickets and the scouting 
parties of light infantry, carrying bows, together with the 
solid phalanx of the men-at-arms. These latter wore 
round helmets and coats of mail ; they carried javelins 
and long lances and each was attended by a shield-bearer. 
It was these roundheads who became the terror of the 
men of Israel, who made ' the people faint ' and so 
harassed them that they ' did hide themselves in caves, 
and in thickets, and in rocks, and in high places, and in 
pits.' There was neither town nor village on the border 



26 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



that had not, at some time or another, been awakened by 
a breathless messenger who, as he ran through the 
startled street, called out ' Haste thee, and come ; for 
the Philistines have invaded the land.' It may be 
assumed that the Philistines fought both for lust of 
battle and for the love of loot, both for the seizing of 
pasture land and for the keeping open of the great caravan 
routes to Damascus by the north and to Egypt by way 
of the desert. 

Now for long years a sickly silence has fallen upon the 
Plain of Sharon. Where was once ' the noise of a whip 
and the noise of the rattling of the wheels and of the 
pransing horses, and of the jumping chariots ' there is 
now only the puffing of the locomotive and the rattle of 
the tourist train. 

The first station of note on the way to Jerusalem is 
Lydda, a little place lost in a great olive grove. Here 
lies the body of no less a person than St. George, the 
patron saint of Merrie England, the same who figures 
in the coinage of our country as a man naked but for a 
hat and scarf and who, sitting bareback on a jibbing 
horse, threatens a much convulsed dragon with a knife. 
As a further test of faith the passer-by is told that the 
saint was born in Lydda, or — as the town was then called — 
Lod. It is said that a church has stood over the remains 
of this fearless being ever since the sixth century. The 
tomb is still in excellent repair and can be seen by loyal 
Englishmen and others on payment of a fee of five 
piastres per person to the Greek sacristan. The pre- 
servation of the tomb must be due to some miraculous 
circumstance, for it would appear that the church in which 



THE WAY TO JERUSALEM 27 



it stands has been destroyed, laid in ruins, and indeed 
razed to the ground, not less than five times. 

A little way beyond Lydda the tower of the white 
mosque of Ramleh becomes, and for long remains, the 
most conspicuous feature of the landscape. It is of 
considerable antiquity, dating, as many say, from the 
commencement of the fourteenth century. As seen 
from the railway it is neither impressive nor picturesque, 
since it has much the appearance of a white lighthouse. 

A far more interesting object is the Jerusalem road 
which is crossed near to Ramleh. Judged by the standard 
of European highways it would be classed as a farm road 
in indifferent repair, yet it is one of the most famous 
human causeways in the world. Through what astonishing 
scenes in history does this humble little track wend its 
way ! The chariot wheels of the Philistines have made 
ruts in its sorry surface, the camels that bore the cedar 
wood for the building of Solomon's Temple have turned 
its dust into clouds, and pilgrims ' as the sand which is on 
the seashore in multitude ' have left the impress of their 
feet on its mud. One would almost expect to find this via 
sacra paved with gold, or bleached white with men's bones, 
or made luminous by the saintly folk who have passed 
along it. There are none of these features, but in the 
place of them and as a sign and symbol of the times there 
is a level crossing athwart the road that leads to the City 
of David. 

A little farther on a friendly dragoman points to a 
clump of trees on the right of the line among and around 
which are a few modern buildings. He says that this 
is the Jewish Agricultural Colony of Akir, and adds 



28 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



mechanically that Akir is the surviving representative of 
Ekron, the famous city of the Philistines, and concludes by 
muttering ' Joshua thirteen three,' as if he were giving 
the telephone number of the place. Ekron was the 
northernmost fortress of Peleshet. It stood boldly on 
the frontier, the outpost of a defiant people, a strong place 
full of strong men. On its watch-towers the sentry never 
slept, above its walls was ever the gleam of helmet and 
spear, while its narrow streets rang night and day, and 
through summer and winter, with the footsteps of men- 
at-arms. There was never peace in Ekron, and so it is 
that the old chronicles have much to tell of the part it 
played in a border war that saw many generations come 
and go. 

But there is one event in the history of this battered 
place which is so tender and so childlike that, in my 
thinking, it makes the country about Akir the most 
enchanting spot on the road to Jerusalem. 

This is the story as the chronicle tells it. The 
Philistines, in one of their raids upon the men of Israel, 
captured the Ark of God and took it with them from 
Ebenezer to their stronghold at Ashdod. At once, in 
consequence of this, dire trouble fell upon Ashdod, a 
trouble so disastrous that the cry soon arose : ' What 
shall we do with the ark of the God of Israel ? ' The 
constable of the town was prompt in his action, for he 
sent the Ark away to Gath. No sooner had it reached 
that city and had been carried through the gaping crowds 
in the streets, than a deadly pestilence broke out which 
was followed, we are told, by ' very great destruction.' 
Thereupon the men of Gath determined to send the Ark 



THE WAY TO JERUSALEM 



to Ekron, to Ekron the invincible and fearless city that 
cared for naught and was dismayed by naught. 

So to Ekron the Ark came and with it came the Angel 
of Death. The garrison thought little of siege and 
assault, and little of fire and famine, but of this black 
horror that laid men low silently and mysteriously, that 
strangled them in the dark, that spared neither great nor 
small, they had an unconcealed and appalling fear. A 
council of the wise men of the city was called at which it 
was decided that the Ark should be sent back to the 
land of Israel. The resolve was carried out in the 
following simple manner. 

A new cart was built by the wheelwrights of the town, 
by men who were better versed, no doubt, in the making of 
chariots, and upon it the Ark was placed. It then seemed 
well to these rough filibusters that some present should 
be sent with the Ark as a gracious offering and as a token 
of regret. So they caused to be made five little images in 
gold and five little golden mice. As works of art it may 
be supposed that these figures were crude and scarcely 
above the achievement of a child. Possibly some burly 
armourer laboured over them and found the task ill 
fitted to his clumsy fingers. He could hammer out a 
breastplate or a pair of greaves, but such tiny things in 
gold made his hands to tremble. 

These delicate offerings the frontiersmen put into a 
box, and the box was placed, solemnly and proudly, in 
the cart by the side of the Ark. The men then yoked 
two milch kine to the new cart and, leading them out of 
the town by the gate that faced the border, let them go 
in whichever way they would. ' And the kine took the 



30 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



straight way to the way of Beth-shemesh, and went along 
the highway, lowing as they went, and turned not aside 
to the right hand or to the left. And they of Beth-shemesh 
were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley : and 
they lifted up their eyes, and saw the ark, and rejoiced 
to see it.' 

It is a wonderful picture — the way through the corn- 
fields, the lowing cattle, the slowly moving Ark, and the 
men of Ekron watching from the gate to see if the Ark 
would ' go again to his own place.' Now it so happens 
that some miles beyond Ekron the train passes a spot 
marked by a few fragmentary ruins. These are the 
ruins of Ain-es-shems and they stand upon the site of the 
Beth-shemesh of the days of old. The railway therefore 
follows the road from Ekron to Beth-shemesh, and indeed 
this memorable highway of the lowing kine runs parallel 
with the track. 

However much the country may have altered since 
the time when the Ark passed by, there are still the 
cornfields and still the grey hills streaked with lilac 
shadows towards which the creaking cart from Ekron 
made its way. Here at least is the actual scene of 
an event in Bible history, unspoiled by any church and 
undefiled by the parade of priestcraft. 

The train is now in the Wadi-es-Sarar or valley of 
Sorek, and it will be remembered that Samson ' loved a 
woman in the valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah.' 

This valley is no glen of enchantment, no luscious glade 
of the siren ; on the contrary it is a bleached, cheerless 
gulley full of stones, almost bare of trees and frowned 
upon by barren, uninviting hills. There are a few flocks 



THE WAY TO JERUSALEM 31 



and herds to be seen, but it is hard to understand what 
the sheep and the goats and the cattle live upon, since 
the whole valley is as grey and sapless as the lichen on 
a gravestone. Here indeed are both ' the cattle ' and 
' the thousand hills,' but the landscape that embraces them 
is ungenerous, niggardly, and mean. The fascination of 
Delilah must have been great indeed if she could attract 
any but a prospecting stone merchant to this wizened 
spot. One will be told of course that in spring Sorek is 
ablaze with flowers, but it is not always spring in Palestine. 

It is while the melancholy of the valley is upon one 
that the dragoman points to a bare, featureless hill on 
the left and remarks casually that it was there that 
Samson lived. He draws attention to the place in the 
same matter-of-fact manner in which he would indicate 
a German clothing factory. These demonstrations of 
scenes from sacred history come upon the unprepared 
with some degree of shock. With most of us Bible 
history belongs to the Garden of Youth, when capricious 
facts are graven on the mind in fantastic hieroglyphics. 
In the very early days when a small forefinger follows 
the line of startling print, when words are not words 
unless read aloud, and when the telling of tales is an 
evensong for the restless and an opiate for minor pains, 
the narratives of Scripture and the nursery story all 
belong to one category of general knowledge. In these 
uncritical years Jack the Giantkiller is as real as is that 
David who slew Goliath with a pebble from out of a 
brook. As for the Amorites, the Hittites, and the 
Jebusites, are they not of the same world as the tribes 
of Lilliput, and may they not have been encountered by 



32 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



Sinbad the Sailor on his many voyagings ? Whatever 
the fault may be, whether the instruction is given at too 
impressionable an age, or is conveyed in too spiritual a 
manner, the fact remains that it is difficult with many to 
associate Bible scenes with spots on the solid earth, with 
places which may be actually reached by steamers and 
trains, and about which it would not be irreverent to 
inquire if they afforded convenient hotel accommodation. 
Thus it is that we are apt for a moment to resent the 
belief that a hill pointed out by a prosing guide from 
a railway carriage window is, in all seriousness, the 
birthplace of Samson, just as we should repudiate the 
statement that it was the early home of Peter Pan. 

Samson, apart from his immense strength, would 
appear to have been, to the end of his days, little more 
than an overgrown boy, spoilt, self-indulgent, given to 
practical jokes and to bragging. 

His exploit at Gaza was just such a prank as an 
undergraduate would delight in. The watch at Gaza 
actually ' laid wait for him all night in the gate of the 
city,' feeling sure that they would take him in the 
morning ; but at midnight Samson comes rollicking 
along and, chaffing the local Dogberrys as they 
crouched in the shadows by the porter's lodge, takes up 
the gates themselves and walks off with them into the 
country, his great shoulders shaking with laughter as he 
pictures the dismay of his would-be captors. 

The manner in which he treated Delilah when she 
was trying to worm out of him the secret of his strength 
can, so far as I know, be described by no English word 
other than the schoolboy's expression ' rotting.' Samson 



THE WAY TO JERUSALEM 33 



' rotting ' Delilah is a little comedy that the boy in the 
Bible class will ever appreciate, just as he will understand 
that nothing but Samson's love of swagger would have 
caused him to 1 give himself away ' as he did over the 
matter of his riddle. 

Samson, however, had a pretty, if caustic wit, for 
when his young friends — after having coaxed the answer 
to the riddle out of Samson's wife — tell it him as if it were 
a discovery of their own, the strong man, guessing what 
had happened, says shrewdly and with a twinkle in his 
eye : ' If ye had not ploughed with my heifer, ye had not 
found out my riddle.' 

It cannot be claimed that the scenery of the country 
where the drama of Samson's life was played can add one 
single touch of vividness or of character to the familiar 
history. The background indeed is as negative as a bank 
of mist. Keith truly says, in his ' Land of Israel,' that 
' the rounded and rocky hills of Judea swell out in empty, 
unattractive, and even repulsive barrenness, with nothing 
to relieve the eye or captivate the fancy.' 

Now commences the long, solemn, mysterious ascent 
through the country of the everlasting hills to the City of 
David. I know of no approach to any town that is quite 
so austere or so haunting as this. The road toils ever 
upwards, hidden from the sight of the world, along an 
interminable valley of stones, along a melancholy ravine, 
sullen and secretive. 

The hills are bare save for some hectic grass and 
starveling scrub. The rain-scoured sides are made up of 
mummy-brown earth in which grey stones are laid in 
horizontal lines, and so regular are these ledges of rock 

D 



34 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



that they look like penitential steps up the side of the 
steep. For some sixteen miles there is scarcely a bush 
to be seen and never a tree. Now and then a stream 
runs along the bottom of the trough, but it is as 
unsympathetic as the stones it runs between. A few 
goats may be come upon here and there, but seldom a 
sign of the habitations of men. 

The road is very tortuous. It threads its way through 
a sunken labyrinth of monotonous rock. The train turns 
to the right and to the left as if it were bewildered, or 
as if, being caught in the sinister maze, it were struggling 
to escape. At every moment one expects some relief, 
some change of view, but the outlook is ever the same. 
We climb up hemmed in by hills and hills and hills, all 
barren, all impassive, and all alike in shape. We seem 
to pass along a processional road, through an awful 
assemblage of earthen pyramids, crumbling into ruin. 

Beyond this hushed labyrinth and at the end of the 
purgatorial road, along which surely must have travelled 
the Wandering Jew, is the Golden City, hidden away 
in a strong place and surrounded by the ramparts and 
trenches of a wilderness of stone. 

At the end of the winding pass we come upon more 
open country and finally upon a valley of stones which 
is called Bittir. Dismal and barren as is the spot it is 
yet the abode of men, for the village of Bittir is of some 
pretence. Goats and human beings are searching for a 
living among the rocks and the stone terraces of this 
harsh place. There are a few vines in the valley and a 
few olive trees, but they do not suffice to make the bare 
slopes live. 



THE WAY TO JERUSALEM 35 



Bittir, being at the entrance to the gorge which leads 
up to Jerusalem, was at one time a stronghold of for- 
midable repute. It was last held by the Jews against 
the Romans during the reign of the Emperor Hadrian in 
the year a.d. 135. The garrison for a period of no less 
than three and a half years kept at bay the invincible 
forces of Rome, and when the last defence was breached 
and the last trench rushed, so horrible a massacre of the 
inhabitants took place that the tortured valley was full 
of dead. It was a memorable victory, for it marked the 
failure of the last attempt of the Jews to regain their 
independence. With the fall of Bittir, indeed, the his- 
tory of the Jews in the Land of Promise came to an end. 

Throughout Palestine I met with no spot which 
appeared to be so well fitted as this to be the scene of 
Ezekiel's vision of the Valley of Dry Bones, since the 
place is so unhappy looking, so bleak, and so full of the 
shadow of death. 

According to the ancient writings, Ezekiel, the son of 
Buzi, found himself in the midst of a valley which was 
full of dry bones. The solitary man, standing among 
the bleached bones in some such dread glade as this, 
made the rocks of the silent place to echo with the 
startling cry : ' O ye dry bones, thus saith the Lord God, 
I will cause breath to enter into you and ye shall live.' 
Then from the horrible heaps of sightless skulls and 
grinning jaws, of thigh-bones and white claw-like hands, 
there arose ' a noise and a shaking, and the bones came 
together, bone to bone.' More than that, as the man 
looked ' the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and 
the skin covered them above : but there was no breath in 



D 2 



36 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



them.' In the dark hollow eye sockets of each mournful 
head would come a spark of light, lips would cover the 
ash-dry teeth, and flesh would wrap around the white 
hoops of the ribs. 

Then once more the stillness of the ghoulish spot was 
broken by the voice of the man calling out, as he raised 
his arms heavenwards : ' Come from the four winds, O 
breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live 
. . . and the breath came into them, and they lived, and 
stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army.' 

Such an army, a grave, still army, might well line the 
slopes of the valley of stones at Bittir, and stand out, in 
gaunt array, against the sky-line on the brink of the glade 
and fill with a rustling, earnest crowd the way that leads 
to Jerusalem as well as the pass that leads to the sea. 

The train, after crawling out of Ezekiel's Valley of 
Dry Bones, loiters across a rock-strewn plain of unreason- 
able ugliness, and finally, with every symptom of extreme 
exhaustion, staggers into the terminus of Jerusalem. 

Of the city there is nothing to be seen, for the station 
is in a land-to-let modern suburb which might be on 
the outskirts of Toulon. As for the station itself it is 
a mere sketch of a wayside halting-place — a line of rails, 
a small house with a clock, and a white fence. There was 
so much bustle on the platform that I thought a race 
meeting or some such boisterous occurrence must be 
impending. The average dragoman now rises in his 
might and shows of what flashing metal he is made. He 
is hung about with bags and ' things ' like the Knight 
in ' Alice in Wonderland.' He implores his charge to 
be calm, and then proceeds to throw himself about 



THE WAY TO JERUSALEM 37 



among the crowd as if he were taking part in a ' rally ' 
at a pantomime. 

Outside the white fence is a compact mob of men 
with their heads in tarboushes or in woollen shawls, and 
their bodies in rags. These are the hotel touts, the cab 
runners, the bazaar scouts, the shopmen's pickets, the 
guides, and the general inutility men who flourish in the 
East as tares among wheat. 

To this rabble the defenceless tourist is flung as a 
sheep to a pack of wolves. He is forced through the 
narrow gate as through the wicket in a sheep-fold. He 
is received with a hungry roar, and, resisting feebly, is 
drawn into the unclean human whirlpool. Every man 
in the crowd appears to have at least six forearms of 
exceptional reach. These are all outstretched towards 
him as he revolves in the perspiring eddy. Cards are 
thrust into his face or jammed into his pocket. Whatever 
he carries — if it be only a stick or a pair of gloves — is 
torn from him as if it were something for the famished 
to eat. He is pawed over by a hundred damp and dirty 
hands. He is trodden upon by naked feet and by 
flopping shoes. He is rolled between a hundred bony 
bodies, as if he were undergoing some process of manu- 
facture, and is finally ejected into a cab in the form of a 
Victoria which has probably seen its better days in the 
streets of Paris or of Naples. 



* 



III 

THE FIRST VIEW OF THE HOLY CITY 

The supreme moment is now at hand ; in another second 
or so there will burst upon the eye of the traveller a view 
of the city of all cities. The spectacle is usually vouch- 
safed under disturbing and unbecoming circumstances. 
Twelve cabs will start from the station yard at one 
time and will then proceed to race to the Holy City. 
The purpose of the racing is threefold. It is assumed, 
in the first place, that the tourist wishes to arrive 
promptly at the hotel in order to secure accommodation 
in advance of others. The driver, on his part, is eager 
to display the fleetness of his horse, in view of further 
service ; and, finally, he has probably a reputation in 
the cab-racing world which he is anxious to maintain. 

The cabs, starting at a gallop, reach the top of a hill 
and proceed to dash down it as if they were escaping 
from Sodom or Gomorrah. There is Jerusalem on the 
next hilltop, but it is impossible, owing to the speed of 
the cab, to the effort involved in clinging to its unsteady 
and collapsing framework, and in rescuing items of 
luggage from destruction, to give the city other than 

incidental attention. Before the traveller realises the 

3 8 



THE FIRST VIEW OF THE HOLY CITY 39 



fact, the twelve cabs, driven in a fashion that Jehu 
the son of Nimshi would approve, have passed across 
the Valley of Hinnom and are climbing the side of the 
Mount of Zion. Before him the fare sees but one all- 
prominent object. It is a very new Jubilee clock of 
white stone, in which, with regrettable skill, the pungent 
vulgarity of the Jubilee clock of England is reproduced 
in an Oriental medium. This clock stands by the Jaffa 
gate, and through that gate the entrance to Jerusalem 
is made. 

For my own part, on the advice of my dragoman, I 
did not share in the chariot race. It was sufficient to 
see the cabs, in a disorderly troop, dash down the hill, 
the tourists rocking to and fro as if they were borne upon 
a tempestuous sea and were buffeted by a mighty wind. 
The Valley of Hinnom represents the Tattenham Corner 
of this Epsom of Mount Zion. Beyond that point the 
cabs draw out into a straggling line, with two horses 
possibly running neck and neck, the whips cracking, and 
the drivers shouting with appropriate profanity. 

Common rumour will have it that the first sight of 
Jerusalem is very disappointing. It is obvious that the 
disappointment, if any, must depend upon the degree 
of expectancy with which the city is approached. If 
the visitor thinks to see the Golden Jerusalem of the 
hymn-book, or the rainbow city of the coloured print, or 
the walled place of two thousand years ago, he will 
experience some such disappointment as will befall the 
foreigner who expects, on emerging from Cannon Street 
railway station, to see traces of the great Roman camp 
which stood on the bank of the Walbrook. 



40 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



The first view of Jerusalem will, I think, satisfy any 
person of reason. Here in a bleak, inhospitable retreat, 
approached by a weary defile through bleaker hills, is 
the passionate, sorrowful city where was enacted the 
great drama of the world. It would seem to have 
hidden itself away from the eyes of men, as a hermit 
in a secret place among the rocks, alone with the 
memory of wellnigh three thousand tragic years. 

The traveller, at his first glance, sees on a pale hill of 
stone the corner of a walled city. The yellow light 
of the setting sun illumines it and makes it glow as if 
by the light from a lamp. 

That which before all things arrests the eye is not 
the city but the massive wall which encircles it about. 
Every battlement on the parapet stands out clear cut 
and bright. The square, broad-shouldered towers which 
hold the height at just such intervals as a sentry would 
pace, throw sharp, purple shadows on the long curtain 
behind them. There are domes and pinnacles and roofs 
in untold multitude beyond the wall, but they are as 
the tree-tops in a convent garden. 

The first impression of Jerusalem is that of a strong 
place built upon a height, of a fortress city spacious and 
dignified, of a living, breathing town in a land of stones. 
So harsh, bleached, and colourless is the country round 
about that the city itself is as the shadow of a rock in a 
weary land. With the exception of a few pallid olive 
trees, a patch here and there of indefinite green, and 
a melancholy cypress, the environs of Jerusalem are 
a dusty, ungenial limestone waste. 

At the bottom of the steep scarp on which the city 



THE FIRST VIEW OF THE HOLY CITY 41 



stands is a dry valley of rocks. This is the valley of the 
long-dead Kedron. Near the valley is a mass of stones 
displaying sufficient order to distinguish ruinous buildings 
from tumbled rocks. This is the village of Siloam. On 
this side of Jerusalem there is no other suburb. Within 
the heavy wall is the city ; without is the ochre-coloured 
limestone desert. Old as is the wall there is no look 
of antiquity about the town itself, which may be a 
place of yesterday. Far away beyond Jerusalem are 
the lilac-blue mountains of Moab which afford to this 
thousand-roofed city a magic and unsubstantial back- 
ground. 

When the traveller, dazed and exhausted by the 
turmoil of his arrival, comes to himself he finds that he 
is seated in a florid coffee-room on an Austrian bent- 
wood chair. He has hung his cloak over a Japanese 
screen ; he is ministered to by a German waiter, the 
while his eye is engaged by a picture on the wall 
representing the execution of Charles I. Amid such 
surroundings the truth comes upon him that he has 
reached at last the city of the Great King. 



IV 



THE CITY OF SORROWS 

Of the Jerusalem of to-day it may be said that ' the 
city lieth foursquare ' as did that city of pure gold whose 
light was like unto a jasper stone, clear as crystal. As 
already noted, there is still about the city ' a wall great 
and high,' but it dates only from the sixteenth century. 
It rises from up the rock to the height of some thirty- 
eight feet and is made magnificent by thirty-four towers 
and by eight gates. The city is of no unusual size, since 
it describes a circuit of less than two and a half miles, 
while an ingenious writer has pointed out that ' it would 
hardly occupy the space included between Oxford Street 
and Piccadilly on the north and south, and Park Lane 
and Bond Street on the east and west.' 1 It has a 
population of about 60,000 and may therefore be com- 
pared in extent to such places as Reading or York. 

The haughty isolation of the city on a pedestal of 
gaunt limestone is marred by the growth of modern 
suburbs without the walls, especially on the side which 
lies to the north-west. These suburbs — composed 
largely of churches, convents, hospices, and villas — are 

l 1 Cook's Handbook for Palestine, p. 69. (London. 1911.) 

42 



THE CITY OF SORROWS 



43 



glaring and ugly. The buildings, moreover, are home- 
less-looking and huddle near to the city like shivering 
outcasts. They conform to the Clapham-Cannes style 
of architecture, and the result breeds melancholy. 
David once described Mount Zion as ' beautiful for 
situation,' and the pedlar in building lots probably 
still urges this attraction for his ' eligible sites,' but the 
beauty of the old days has long vanished. 

In general terms it may be noted that Jerusalem is 
built upon two nearly parallel hills, one lying to the west 
and one to the east. Between them is a glen — the 
Tyropceon Valley — which runs north and south from 
the Damascus gate to the Pool of Siloam. This valley 
is now nearly obliterated, being filled to the depth of 
some seventy feet with the debris and ruins of centuries. 

On the northern end of the eastern hill — on that part 
known as Mount Moriah — stood Solomon's Temple. 
A little south of the temple and on a lower level was the 
great palace, while on the south end of the hill (on the 
area now called Ophel) rose the Jebusite stronghold 
captured by David. It will be remembered that in due 
course ' David dwelt in the fort, and called it the city 
of David.' Thus it is that at the present time it is very 
generally allowed that Ophel ^indicates the site of Mount 
Zion and the city of the Great King. 

The western hill was occupied by the less ancient town 
of Jerusalem. 

To the east of the two hills runs the valley of the 
Kedron, and on their western side ' the valley of Hin- 
nom, which is at the end of the valley of the giants.' 

Two streets starting respectively from the Jaffa 



44 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



Gate and the Damascus Gate intersect near the centre 
of the town and thus divide Jerusalem into four quarters, 
viz. : the quarters of the Mohammedans, the Christians, 
the Armenians, and the Jews. 

When Abd-Khiba wrote a letter from Urusalem to 
Amenophis IV, King of Egypt, about three thousand 
four hundred years ago, neither he nor the Egyptian 
could have dreamed of the astounding and yet lament- 
able fortunes which were in store for the city. The 
letter remains, but of the place from which it was dis- 
patched not a stone survives. 

The history of the Holy City has been many times 
written and needs not to be again produced. Suffice 
it to say that the annals are the annals of a tragic town 
whose records are now of triumphant splendour and now 
of the dumbest misery. The voice of the city has been 
at one time as the blast of a trumpet and at another as 
the sob of the dying. For the most part, through many 
a sombre century, it has been the voice of lamentation 
and unhappiness. 

Jerusalem has been from almost the dawn of its days 
the City of Sorrows, the city of ' the land of trouble and 
anguish.' 

It was ever doomed to misfortune, ever marked out 
for vengeance and punishment, and ever shadowed by 
recurring ruin. The writers of sacred books were never 
weary of denouncing the city nor of prophesying its 
downfall. They employed an exhaustless imagery to 
describe its vileness, they shrieked against its iniquities 
and abominations, they broke out into rhapsodies upon 
its coming sufferings, and foretold for the place every 



THE CITY OF SORROWS 



45 



possible ill that could afflict the most hapless habitation 
of man. 

' Jerusalem shall become heaps ' the writing ran ; 
' there shall not be left one stone upon another that 
shall not be thrown down ' : and the prophecy has come 
true. The misery of the city has been abject and com- 
plete. No invention of malice, no subterfuge of revenge, 
could add to its woes. For century after century the 
cry from the watch-tower on the city wall has been ever 
the same : ' Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by ? 
behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my 
sorrow.' 

Jerusalem in the course of its history was besieged 
and destroyed by the Philistines and the Arabs, by the 
Persians and the Parthians, by the Kings of Egypt and 
the Kings of Assyria, by the Romans, by the Crusaders, 
and by the Moslems. Twice was its destruction so 
complete that it remained for periods of some sixty 
years a tumbled ruin, uninhabited and forgotten. Twice 
indeed did ' the city sit solitary that was full of people,' 
while only the howl of the wild beast broke the silence 
of the deserted streets. 

It has been consumed by fire, rent by earthquake, 
and decimated by pestilence. Its people have been 
swept off in one sudden day by a blast of murder, and 
have rotted through long sickly weeks from drought 
and famine. It has been an arena for the display of 
the vilest passions that have possessed the human race, 
and the scene of at once the most glorious and the most 
degrading demonstrations of religion that the world 
has witnessed. 



46 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 

The old Jerusalem lies buried deep beneath the ruins 
of centuries. Dust and stones have obliterated the 
scenes of its past history. The ancient glories have 
been swept away ; the scenes and scars of bygone 
miseries are hidden out of sight. 

In the telling of its story the voice of the city is 
faint almost to nothingness, for that which was said is 
true : ' Thy speech shall whisper out of the dust.' 



V 



WITHIN THE WALLS 

There are no streets in Jerusalem — that is to say, 
there are no open roadways within the walls along which 
even the humblest carriage could make its way. The 
noise of wheels, therefore, is never to be heard within 
the Holy City. In the place of streets is a maze of lanes, 
and those who would traverse the same must do so on 
foot or seated on a donkey. The ass serves to keep one's 
feet out of the sour black filth with which the Golden 
City is paved during both ' the former ' and ' the latter ' 
rains as well as during any intermediate rains. There 
are difficulties, however, about the donkey, for the animal 
has his own views as to the way he should go, and de- 
clines to accept hints. As the beast, in forcing his path 
through the crowd, is no regarder of persons, the rider's 
progress is attended by a blizzard of abuse, unless he 
can announce his coming in the native tongue. 

Riding of this kind also can hardly be classed as 
exercise in the open air, since it involves movement 
through a more or less solid medium. The traveller 
never sees the road ; he is pushing through a living 
thicket : his face is brushed by the hairy chest of a 

47 



48 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



camel ; his foot, caught in the cloak of a hurrying 
Bedouin, is turned so violently round as to point back- 
wards ; his leg is made wet by a mass of bleeding meat 
carried by a butcher ; his back is whitened by a sack of 
flour ; people lean against him and his donkey as they 
would against a wall ; they push him aside with their 
hands as if he were a stiff-hinged gate ; camels essay to 
walk through him, and at the end he feels that he is as 
clay that is rolled between the palms of the potter. The 
conclusion of the whole matter is that in Zion it is better 
to walk than to ride. 

The whole of Jerusalem within the walls is made up 
of a tangle of lanes and byways of infinite and alarming 
complexity. If the modern city be likened to a formal 
garden, then this city is a jungle full of disquieting 
shadows and will-o'-the-wisps of strange light. The 
traveller wanders to and fro expecting every moment 
to find himself in an honest roadway open to the sky, 
but such a fair street he will never find. Jerusalem 
appears to be composed wholly of intriguing, bewilder- 
ing slums. Let the curious turn aside but a few paces 
from a known path and he may be lost for hours. This 
is one of the most impressive and memory-haunting 
things in the sorrowful city— this human labyrinth, 
devilish in its ingenuity, baffling by its maniacal aim- 
lessness, mocking in its elfish trickery. 

The ways of Jerusalem are narrow, are for the most 
part paved, are inconsequent, and full of the unexpected. 
Certain lanes are made up of wide stone steps that descend 
into a valley of dirtiness and then mount up on the 
opposite side. Other causeways are between high blank 



WITHIN THE WALLS 



49 



walls, like the passages in a fortress. These walls, 
originally grey in colour, are shaded with every tone of 
uncleanness, are made blue in parts by mildew, or show 
patches of delightful green where weeds or tufts of grass 
are growing in the crannies. 

The houses are all of sullied stone and few are of the 
same shape. Some appear to have a door but no win- 
dows ; others would seern to have only windows and to 
be entered by some invisible portal. There are arched 
passages with possibly a grilled peep-hole in the black 
of the arch and the glimmer of a lamp behind the bars. 
There are long vaulted ways, grimy as railway tunnels, 
lit by holes in the roof through which a ray of sun may 
occasionally be shot. There are tunnels, too, that pass 
under houses, the door of the house being hidden in 
the darkest shadow of the passage. In the open lanes 
are windows far up on the walls that project over 
the causeway and are elaborately screened. There are 
pretentious windows of stone also supported on stone 
corbels, as well as windows with little crumpled bal- 
conies hanging to them which may be full of flowers. 
One comes upon fragments of old walls, upon ash-white 
ruins, upon ancient stone fountains, upon cavern-like 
cellars the mouldy breath of whose mouths fills the lane 
with the chill of death. 

There are, moreover, mysterious narrow stairs that 
turn furtively out of sight between suspicious walls. Up 
one such forbidding stair a man, in a long dull robe, was 
making his way. His head was hidden in a hood and 
he carried a staff in his hand. He might have been the 
impenitent thief, who died at Golgotha, slinking home. 

E 



50 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



At high noon when the sun is clear, the by-ways of 
the city are slashed with intense shadows and intense 
lights. At the end of a vaulted passage, black as the 
pit, may be a white courtyard dazzling almost to 
blindness. On many a grimy path are pools of sun 
as brilliant as spilt quicksilver, while in the abysmal 
tunnels a ray of light coming through a crack in the 
roof looks like a tie-rod of white-hot metal. 

The lanes of the residential quarters are for the most 
part silent and little occupied. The few passers-by move 
slowly and affect a meditative or depressed bearing. 
Children are not much in evidence, and such as are met 
with appear tired and listless. It is evident that the 
day has not yet come when ' the streets of the city shall 
be full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof.' 

In the business quarters, in the lanes of shops, there 
is ever, on the other hand, a restless and congested 
crowd. The shops are the shops of the East, mere 
square gaps in a wall filled with disordered merchan- 
dise which, spread out mostly on the floor or dangling 
from the walls, fills the dull way with that infinite 
variety of tint and colour, of perfume and stench, which 
is characteristic of the oriental bazaar. The shops are 
equipped with ancient weatherworn shutters of archaic 
type, hanging at various angles from their hinges. As 
I did not see a single new shop shutter throughout the 
whole of Jerusalem I conclude that this article, like 
certain wine, must attain to age before it can be of 
service. Some of the shutters are so venerable and 
infinitely patched that it would be more easy to 
believe that they belonged to the actual City of David 



WITHIN THE WALLS 



5i 



than to accept the relics which are seriously accredited 
to the time of that monarch. 

Above each shop front is a little wooden sill or 
weatherboard to keep off the sun and the rain. To assist 
these ends the board is supplemented by miscellaneous 
bits of canvas, flaps of cloth, and dangling rags. It 
thus happens that on a rainy day no place drips like the 
bazaar in Jerusalem. The water streams off each eave 
in a thousand threads, like the down-coming strands in 
the warp of a loom, and trickles from a million points 
of frayed rag as from the leaves of a drenched tree. The 
mud of the flags is splashed upwards as the jets strike 
the stones, so that the wayfarer when caught in a shower 
can only escape a complete soaking by keeping well in 
the rain. So long as he keeps in the mere rain he is 
comparatively dry, but when he is out of it he is under a 
cascade of yellow and penetrating water which is derived 
from the concentrated shop roofs of Jerusalem. 

The crowd in the bazaar is miscellaneous and more 
mixed probably than any crowd in the world. Con- 
spicuous is the Jew who should be — although he is not — 
the rightful inhabitant of Jerusalem. He is known by 
his broad-brimmed felt hat, by his cap trimmed with 
fur, by his dressing-gown-like robe, by his coat of tawdry 
plush, and by his peculiar side-locks of hair. These 
greasy love-locks, which may become a youthful Jew 
of seventeen, look very eerie in an ancient man. 

Most of these Jews appear to be very poor ; a curi- 
ously large proportion of them is very old, while there 
are few who are not abject-looking or whose faces are 
not tinged by a sallow melancholy. They are miserable 

E 2 



52 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



representatives of those fierce, sturdy, hard-fighting 
Hebrews who cut their way into this mountain fastness 
and held for so long the stronghold of Zion. 

Conspicuous also is the Greek priest, robed in black, 
with long hair like a woman, the effeminate locks being 
surmounted by a ridiculous saucepan-shaped hat. 
Many are of priestly bearing, but others are so 
unintelligent-looking and so brutish in feature as to 
afford the most unpleasant type of man to be found in 
Jerusalem. 

As an agreeable contrast to these unwholesome cell- 
bred manikins is the Bedouin with his keen eye, his 
well-squared shoulders, his sunburnt limbs, and his 
splendid carriage. He wears a coloured cloth over his 
head bound with a cord made of black wool or of 
camel's hair. His robe may be tattered and patched, 
his shoes may be mere flaps of dirty leather, but he 
is in every step of his stride a strong man, free and 
self-reliant. 

Moslems with white turbans and dark robes form 
the most picturesque element in the bazaar crowd. 
Some are so grave and shrewd of countenance that they 
may be learned professors from a forgotten university. 
Others look like necromancers and only need the crucible, 
the alembic, and the strange-shaped bottles to start the 
distilling of the elixir of life. Some are like little goblin 
merchants, ' that peep and that mutter ' as they dart 
about the streets in search of bargains. 

In the crowd, too, are veiled women in black who 
would seem to be items detached from a funeral pageant, 
as well as bent old crones who, upon the addition of a 



WITHIN THE WALLS 



53 



conical hat, a red cloak, and a cat, would turn at once 
into witches. 

There are, moreover, mixed up with the camels, the 
sheep and the donkeys, Turkish soldiers, gilded officials, 
negroes, dervishes, yellow-skinned, almond-eyed Mon- 
golians, crafty-looking Greeks, Syrians with tarboushes 
on their heads and the clothes of the Hackney bank- 
holiday maker on their bodies, heavily clad Russians, 
tourists with field-glasses, cameras, and guide-books, 
solemn lank-haired pilgrims from the frontiers of India 
who have drifted here from Mecca. Last of all the 
visitor may meet — as I did — a small Sudanese boy who, 
in spite of the cold, was naked but for a rag, and who, 
perched on the extreme end of a donkey, was grinning 
with exquisite delight. He was the sole embodiment 
in the crowd of the happy state ' of having nothing and 
yet possessing all things.' 

That by-way in Jerusalem which is the best known, 
and to which the traveller will turn with the greatest 
expectancy, is the Via Dolorosa, the Path of Pain, along 
which Christ is supposed to have walked in His weary 
progress from the judgment hall to the place of cruci- 
fixion. Did such a lane exist among the mazes of the 
city it would indeed be the most dolorous and the most 
sacred footway in the world. 

The Via Dolorosa which pilgrims come thousands of 
miles to see is a quite modern lane. For some distance 
it is a paved passage between blank walls ; it then 
changes to a mean street, and at last ends ignobly in the 
bazaar in a vaulted passage full of noisome shops. 
Along this dirty and callous street the Stations of the 



54 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



Cross are marked by inscribed stones let into the walls 
or by other insignia. Here, for example, is indicated 
the exact spot where the cross was laid upon Jesus. 
Here is the place where He sank under the weight 
of His burden. Here is the point in the lane where 
He met His mother, and a little farther on is the spot 
where Veronica wiped the sweat from His brow. 
A picturesque medieval house, projecting over the 
street, is pointed out as the house of the rich man 
Dives, while near the fifth station there is — built into 
the wall — a stone which has a hollow in it caused by 
the pressure of the hand of Christ. 

The Via Dolorosa is a mere fiction of the Christian 
Church, a lane of lies, a path of fraud. The present 
road does not appear to have come into existence until 
the sixteenth century, and, according to Dr. Sanday, 
' its course has been frequently changed.' 1 It is a 
great commercial asset, however, so it can be understood 
that when next its direction is modified there will be 
keen competition to turn it to individual advantage. 

The magnitude of the deception can be realised if it 
be remembered that the site of Calvary is not known, 
that some forty years after the crucifixion of Christ 
Jerusalem was so utterly destroyed by Titus as to be 
left ' a mass of scarcely distinguishable ruins,' that it 
remained a mere heap of stones for some sixty years, 
when the Emperor Hadrian built upon the waste a Roman 
city and made of Jerusalem a purely heathen colony, 
and that it was not until some three hundred years after 
the death of Christ, when every trace of the city of His 

1 Sacred Sites of the Gospels, p. 55, by W. Sanday, D.D. (Oxford. 1903.) 



WITHIN THE WALLS 



55 



time had been obliterated, that any attempt was made 
to discover the so-called sacred sites. In the mean- 
time the valley crossed by the reputed Via Dolorosa 
had been buried beneath the debris of centuries to the 
depth of some sixty feet. Dean Stanley speaks of the 
constant satisfaction he derived from the thought ' that 
the old city itself lies buried twenty, thirty, forty feet 
below these wretched shops and receptacles for Anglo- 
Oriental conveniences.' 1 

The heartless cruelty of the deception can be judged 
by watching the conduct of a devout body of poor 
Russian pilgrims who, after a lifetime of thrift, have 
been able to save enough money to make the journey 
to Jerusalem. Their sincerity is beyond doubt, their 
trust is that of a child, their faith is pathetic and un- 
questioning. Tears stream down their faces as they 
walk along the Path of Pain, wrung by the belief that 
they are actually treading in the footsteps of Christ. 
At each ' station ' they kneel and pray ; they kiss the 
wall, or, falling down in the dirt, kiss the filth of the 
road. 

It may be held that this outpouring of religious 
fervour, this profound, worshipful homage, this ecstasy 
of devotion is not lessened in worth by the chicanery 
and falsehood with which it is surrounded ; but the 
argument is unavailing. 

There is consolation, however, in the thought that 
somewhere in Jerusalem, buried fathoms deep beneath 
dust and stone, there lies in supreme peace the ineffable 
path actually trodden by the feet of Christ, and that 

1 Sinai and Palestine , p. 167. (London. 1881.) 



56 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



' none shall pass through it for ever and ever.' It lies 
hidden from the eyes of the mumming priest and is safe 
for ever from that tawdry oblation of gilt image and 
brazen lamp which marks the Church's appreciation 
of a sacred place. 



VI 



THE CULT OF THE BEGGAR 

It is in Jerusalem of all cities of the world that begging 
reaches to its highest development as an art and craft. 
There has been a school of begging at this city for some 
fifteen hundred years. For fifteen centuries devout 
pilgrims have been making their way to Jerusalem, 
with more or less travail, from every part of the earth. 
They have come for the good of their souls. They have 
come to do penance for their sins. They have come in the 
hope of attaining more assuredly to eternal peace. The 
pilgrimage has been one profound act of self-sacrifice, 
one intense self-torturing outburst of religious fervour. 
When the devout man reaches the sacred spot what can 
he do ? He can throw himself upon the ground, he can 
pray, he can either in fact or by metaphor rend his clothes 
and put dust and ashes upon his head, he can light 
candles, he can bestow money upon the ever-grasping 
church, and he can give alms to the poor. The last act is 
so open, so obvious, so immediately gratifying, that it 
must prove to be a conspicuous detail in the devotee's 
ritual. 

Beggars, therefore, have been from early days as 

57 



58 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



necessary in Jerusalem as the altar, the relic, and the 
cloud of incense. Besides the great army of the really 
devout there are the would-be devout, the temporarily 
devout, and the merely curious. These latter also give 
alms — not for the good of their souls or the comfort of 
the mendicant, but because almsgiving is a part of the 
life of the place, a feature of the visit, a ' thing to do.' 

The beggars of Jerusalem have had to deal with a 
miscellaneous host of people, countless as the sands of the 
seashore, who speak in unknown tongues, and to whom 
petition by mere word of mouth would be ineffectual. 
The mendicants, therefore, have had to appeal to the 
sympathy of the visitor by means of gesture, by dramatic 
miming, by pose, and by subtle suggestion. 

The art of begging does not consist of mere whining 
and snivelling, nor of the mere bald display of bodily 
affliction. The woman who in the streets of London 
shuffles after a ruddy citizen with a box of matches in 
her hand, and the piping drawl, ' Kind gentleman, gimme 
a penny to buy bread,' is no artist. She is a mere 
untutored creature of convention who would starve 
in Jerusalem in a week. Her method is too crude, 
her whine is artificial and stereotyped by custom ; it 
expresses neither supplication nor suffering, but merely 
conforms to the current conception of the mode of address 
proper for beggars. It is so far removed from pathos as to 
be on the border of the ridiculous. In England a blind 
man, wrapped in a thick coat and comforter, will stand 
against a wintry wall with the neat inscription ' Blind ' 
on his chest, and with a dog before him covered by a 
little rug. The dog has a tin attached to his neck for 



THE CULT OF THE BEGGAR 



59 



alms. The man's eyes are closed and so are the dog's. 
The man does not even hold out his hand, but repeats 
from time to time, in a nerveless monotone, the phrase 
' Pity the poor blind,' while he rocks alternately from 
one foot to the other to keep himself warm. People give 
him money mechanically, in response to a congenitally 
acquired habit — not because he is blind but because he 
seems bored, or more often still because his dog seems 
bored and the chink of a coin in his tin wakes him up. 

Now in Jerusalem the begging of the blind is a 
dramatic act, a human tragedy in one vivid pose. Out 
of a damp shadow in a lane there darts a haggard youth, 
pale as a nUn, emaciated as a mummy, with wild hair 
and outstretched bony arms. His eyelids are staring 
open, showing two opaque eyeballs which are like knobs 
of white chalk. He is blind as a statue is blind. He is 
nearly naked. He turns towards you a face distorted 
with expectancy, as if it were you and you alone who 
could restore his sight. He seems as if he had been 
waiting for you in the lane for years. He is led by 
a cachectic girl, a mere thing of rags, whose lined 
face is luminous with excitement and hope. There is 
no whining for money, no banal platitude about ' the 
poor blind.' She whispers to herself ' Help is at hand,' 
and points first to the youth's dead eyes and then to 
the sun. No one could pass this boy and girl unheeded. 
The onlooker feels that he is one of the dramatis 
personam, and that without him in the act of giving 
alms the group of living statuary is incomplete. 

I recall also a blind woman by the roadside, near to 
St. Stephen's Gate. She was young and not uncomely. 



6o THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



She sat in the dust with her hands dropped listlessly in 
her lap like the hands of the dead. She uttered no sound, 
she held out no tin mug. The sun falling on her shapely 
head threw her empty eye sockets into deep shadows. 
She merely rocked her body to and fro, a picture of 
utter loneliness and intolerable misery, a conception of 
the outcast who had lost all hope and had long ceased to 
look for help. This was not mere area gate, suburban 
begging, it was a display of art. I watched her for some 
time. She did well and earned more in an hour than the 
conventional pavement-tapping blind man would have 
earned in Jerusalem in a week. 

The most dreadful spectacle in connection with the 
blind was in the vaults of the Church of the Holy Sepul- 
chre. Among the foundations of that building is a 
dark cavern. It is reached by rough steps cut in the 
rock. They are steep and drop out of sight into the 
gloom. The cave is converted into a rude chapel, called 
the Chapel of the Invention. When we visited the place 
a faint light fell upon the first three steps, and on each 
step a hooded figure was crouching with its back 
to the wall. The three were alike. They appeared to 
be men and to be very old. They were dressed each in 
a gown of sackcloth, the hood of the gown being pointed 
like the corner of a sack. When they turned their faces 
towards the light it could be seen that all were blind. 
They seemed to belong to the underworld and to have 
never attained nearer to the open air. To them might 
have been applied the words of the prophet Micah : ' they 
shall move out of their holes like worms of the earth.' 
They muttered something that the dragoman told me 




I. 



THE CULT OF THE BEGGAR 



61 



was ' We are poor, hungry, and blind.' There was some- 
thing sinister in these three shrouded figures sitting in a 
row like ghouls at the mouth of a tomb. Three ravens 
perched on a bough in a charred wood could not have 
made a more horrid portent of disaster. I gave the 
nearest ghoul money in order to rid myself of the awful 
incubus imposed by their presence. It was a relief, 
when we were out of hearing, to see the three grey figures 
wrangling over the coins, snarling and spitting like cats 
and grabbing at one another with claw-like hands. 

In a place like the Holy Land, where the profession 
of begging is so highly cultivated, one must expect to 
come upon amateurs and imitators as well as upon actors 
of feeble attainment. An instance of the incomplete 
beggar was afforded us in the streets of Bethlehem. We 
there encountered a plump, jovial-looking girl of ten or 
twelve whose ruddy cheeks and sturdy limbs betokened 
good living. As we approached she promptly twisted 
her features into what was intended to be an expression 
of intense misery. As her face was naturally merry this 
attempt to depict a paroxysm of woe was exceedingly 
ludicrous, and when, with her hands clasped as in prayer, 
she whined, ' My little sister is at home in the house 
crying for bread,' we could only burst into laughter. 
Now some time previously I had asked a resident in 
Jerusalem why the native children went to the mission 
schools, and he had replied cynically that they went 
there ' to learn enough English to beg.' This girl appeared 
to provide an illustration of the statement, but on in- 
quiry we found that she had never been to a mission 
school ; she did not know a single word of English 



62 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



beyond those embodied in her distressful speech, and 
the meaning of the sentence itself she had forgotten. 
As a beggar she was a failure. Her stock-in-trade was 
too small ; her repertoire too limited. The episode, 
however, afforded her consummate amusement, and 
whenever the dragoman inquired, in Arabic, after the 
sister who was shrieking for bread she became convulsed 
with laughter. She was given money, for although she 
was not a success as a mendicant, she showed some 
promise as a humourist. 

The cities are not the only resorts of beggars. The 
brotherhood and the sisterhood of the derelict are spread 
throughout the length of the land. Wherever the 
tourist goes they go. They never lose sight of him. If 
he mounts up to a hilltop they are there. If he descends 
into the bowels of the earth they are there also. As the 
prophet Jeremiah writes : ' They hunt our steps, that we 
cannot go in our streets . . . they laid wait for us in the 
wilderness.' This universal demand for baksheesh, from 
Dan to Bathsheba, might have been in the mind of that 
other prophet when he wrote ' every one loveth gifts, 
and followeth after rewards.' 

The beggars in the country and about the outskirts 
of towns are mere tramps and footpads, however, when 
compared with the finished artist who is to be found in 
Jerusalem. In that city the beggars particularly favour 
one especial lane. It is the one that leads down to the 
Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This lane is the very 
end of the pilgrim's way, the end of the road to which 
a thousand paths converge from every quarter of the 
world. As the way is steep it is cut into steps and paved. 



THE CULT OF THE BEGGAR 



63 



On either side is a blank wall. On the steps where they 
touch the wall the beggars lie, huddled close together 
in a brown, damp, feebly writhing mass. They seem 
to have been blown into the gutter and to have become 
heaped up there against the wall, as are leaves and litter 
after a wind. Some are lying on the ground, some are 
sitting, but all are in positions of extreme unease. They 
might have been thrown against the wall by the force 
of an explosion and be lying there with bent limbs and 
broken backs. 

They seem to ooze down the steps in a thick continu- 
ous mass, made up of inharmonious human ingredients. 
Here is a cinder-grey hand stretched out. All the 
fingers are gone, but there is a thumb left which keeps 
moving to and fro. Spread out on the flags are para- 
lysed limbs looking like shrivelled tree branches, although 
it is difficult to say to which bundle of tatters any 
two belong. Here is a club foot dangling over a stone. 
It is so livid with the cold as to resemble a purple root. 
Faintly seen, under the shade of a cowl, is a face without 
a nose and without eyes. Near by a bony knee projects 
with a fungating tumour on it like a crushed tomato. 
There are horrible sores, too, effectively displayed as if 
they were possessions of price. Above all there comes 
ever from this medley of maimed folk a low, monotonous 
sound as dreary as the moaning of the winter wind 
around a lonely house. 

There was one episode associated with begging in 
Jerusalem which impressed me more than any other, 
and which I can even now not recall without a choking 
in the throat. It was near the twelfth hour of the day — 



64 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



that is, about sunset. A casual dragoman and I were 
plodding along a street in Jerusalem which I can only 
remember as rendered in grey and made miserable by 
the wet. The folk of the town were hurrying by with 
bent heads and that callous disregard of everything but 
themselves which is characteristic of people in a driving 
rain. 

On a sudden I was accosted by a spectre of a girl 
of about fourteen. She was lean and pale and clad in 
thin black clothes which, being wet, seemed to be pasted 
on her body. She had curious silver-grey eyes, the tint 
of the scales of a fish. She held out her hands as if she 
would grip me by the coat, while in tones of intense 
eagerness she asked : ' Are you English ? ' I said ' I am.' 
She then gasped out ' Oh do help me ! I am in such 
trouble. My father is lying dead in the house and I am 
all alone.' She had the wild look of a maniac ; she 
seemed distracted with grief and stupefied with misery. 
She was panting with haste as if she had been running 
to and fro in the rain to find some one who understood 
her language and to whom she could appeal for help. 
I could see at a flash the dead man alone in a mean 
room empty of furniture and food ; I could see the 
open door, the wet street. My profession has made 
me familiar with tragic moments, but I remember few 
more dramatic than this. The girl's unnatural voice 
made one's flesh creep. Her strange grey eyes were 
terrible. 

I said I would come with her at once. The dragoman 
held up a restraining hand and smiled. The girl had 
vanished. I asked of the man, ' Is this not true ? ' He 



THE CULT OF THE BEGGAR 65 



replied, 'No. She recognised me. I have heard this 
story twenty times. She is the finest beggar in Jeru- 
salem.' Indeed she was. So fine, in fact, that I often 
wondered if her hurrying away was not due to some 
tardiness in my response, there being not a moment 
for her to lose. 

She was a Greek, I was told, and her father was alive 
and well. Her command of English was perfect. Her 
command of emotional expression would have thrilled 
even Euripides. Never has the art of begging attained 
to greater finish even in Jerusalem. 



VII 



THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE 

The goal of all good pilgrims who come to Jerusalem 
is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. For some fifteen 
centuries it has been the dream of the lives of millions 
of people to enter the door of this church and to seek 
in its holy shadows for that peace which passeth 
all understanding. It is every year the dream of 
thousands still, the one ambition of their days, to see 
Jerusalem before they die. 

It is claimed that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre 
contains within its walls the actual hillock of bare ground 
that was stained with the blood of Christ and that it 
shows still the mark left by the setting up of the cross. 
It is maintained, moreover, that the church is built 
upon the site of that garden where was a tomb, ' hewn 
out in the rock,' in which the body of Christ was placed, 
and that this tomb stands in actual existence upon the 
floor of the building to this day. 

This claim of the church has been for long the subject 
of persistent and disquieting controversy, which has led 
to no other result than to make it evident to ordinary 
folk that the exact site of the crucifixion and the locality 

66 



THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE 67 



of the holy sepulchre are unknown and, further, that they 
are not likely ever to be discovered. As has already 
been said (page 54) the Jerusalem of old was practically 
obliterated and buried in ruins. ' Zion,' says Micah, 
' . . . shall be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall 
become heaps.' The foundations of the ancient walls are 
in some places one hundred and thirty feet below the 
present surface. It was not until some three centuries 
after the crucifixion that the Emperor Constantine took 
steps to discover the holy sites among the acres of rubbish 
which represented the old city. Those whom he com- 
missioned to fulfil this duty had to find those sites — and 
they found them. They had also to hold in mind the 
fact that the site discovered must of necessity be a 
suitable spot for the building of a church. It is curious 
that the ground on which the present church stands 
was already occupied by a temple to Venus, built by 
Hadrian when he made Jerusalem a Roman city. The 
true cross was discovered by the Empress Helena by 
means of a dream, and its identity was made evident 
by the miraculous powers of healing which it was found 
to possess. The story, when read in the light of the 
twentieth century, is utterly unconvincing. 

Moreover, the present site of the Holy Sepulchre, if 
genuine, must have been outside the so-called ' second 
wall,' that wall, indeed, which surrounded the city in the 
time of Christ. Such fragments of this wall as have 
been discovered suggest to many that it enclosed the 
Holy Sepulchre. To exclude it the wall must be 
assumed to make an abrupt and remarkable bend 
which is hard to explain and which would give to 

F 2 



68 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



this ' second wall ' a general direction followed by- 
no other boundary, new or old, that encompasses 
Jerusalem. 

Calvary, moreover, as exposed in the church, is of 
bare rock, and in this rock the sockets for the three 
crosses have been cut — as it would seem — with no mean 
labour by mason's tools. This may or may not be con- 
sistent with the rough-and-ready way in which common 
thieves and disturbers of the peace were put to death 
in the days of Herod. 

There is a rival site to the present one, known as 
the Garden Tomb or Gordon's Calvary. The latter title 
is due to the fact that the claims of this particular place 
to be the real scene of the crucifixion were favoured by 
General Gordon. The place, which is ' nigh to the 
city ' and close to the Damascus Gate, is one of the few 
pretty spots in the suburbs of Jerusalem. In a secluded 
and unpretentious garden is a tomb hewn in the wall of 
rock which forms one boundary of the retreat. Above 
the garden is a low green mound which is claimed to be 
the Golgotha of old days. Every feature of the place 
fits in with the Bible narrative, and the simple little spot 
enables one to realise, in a graphic and natural manner, 
every detail which that narrative lays bare. One can 
picture Mary stooping down and looking into the sepul- 
chre when she saw the ' two angels in white sitting, the 
one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the 
body of Jesus had lain.' She came, with ' the other 
Mary,' before the sun was up, just as the day ' began 
to dawn,' and it can be understood how, in the uncertain 
light, in the shadow of the rock, the countenance of the 



THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE 69 



angel would be luminous ' like lightning, and his raiment 
white as snow.' 

Apart from this, however, there is not the slightest 
ground upon which to support the conclusion that this 
quiet nook outside the city wall represents the actual 
scene of the great world-moving drama. 

It may be surmised, nevertheless, that should later 
exploration reveal the fact that the ' second wall ' does 
include the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, there will 
be a rush of clergy to this modest spot, and after those 
bitter wranglings which have ever characterised the 
Christian Church in Jerusalem, the garden will be covered 
with marble and bricks, altars will be raised under a 
cathedral dome, and the tomb will be decorated with 
brass, tinsel, and gilt, and lit with lamps. The so-called 
sacred spot will be robbed of every cherished feature, 
while in place of the hushed, bird-haunted garden and 
the empty grave there will be a blatant fabric, com- 
parable only to a Hindoo temple. 

The structures composing the Church of the Holy 
Sepulchre are built upon two natural terraces of rock 
which rise out of the valley. A spot on the higher 
terrace is assumed to be the place of the crucifixion. 
The tomb in which Christ was laid is said to have been 
hewn in the rock which forms the vertical face of this 
terrace. In order to obtain a level foundation for the 
original churches ' the rock of the upper terrace was cut 
away in such manner as to leave the grave of Christ 
and the place of the crucifixion standing out as isolated 
masses of rock above the general level.' 1 On the 

1 Macmillan's Guide to Palestine and Syria, p. 45. (London. 1908). 



70 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



lower terrace, which was considered to represent the 
garden of the Bible narrative, the churches were built 
about the year 330. Two churches were erected by 
Constantine — a round church (now represented by the 
Rotunda), in the centre of which was the tomb, and 
a basilica, dedicated to the Cross, which was placed to 
the east, but in what exact position is unknown. The 
artificially isolated mass of rock, called Mount Calvary, 
was enclosed by a separate church in the fifth century. 
It thus happens that the whole configuration of the spot 
has been so altered that it is impossible to realise what 
was the natural aspect of the region before the work of 
destruction was commenced. 

The great building is now a jumble of dark churches 
and gloomier chapels, burrowing deep into the earth. 
Every corner of the dismal, bewildered fabric appears to 
be shrinking from the light, and so far as any notion of the 
disposition of the ground can be obtained the structure 
might have been founded in the workings of a mine. 

The history of this astonishing house of prayer has 
been written so many times that it need not be alluded 
to except to say that of the earlier churches none but 
the faintest traces are now existing. The various edi- 
fices which, from time to time, covered the site were 
repeatedly wrecked or destroyed with fire by fanatical 
heretics, and as repeatedly rebuilt by the orthodox 
devout. The most important restoration was carried 
out by the Crusaders during the first half of the twelfth 
century, when a building of great grandeur in the 
Romanesque style was erected. Finally came the 
calamitous fire of 1808 which swept the whole fabric 



THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE 71 



from the ground, leaving merely a shell of the Crusaders' 
once magnificent building. The present Church of the 
Holy Sepulchre, taken as a whole, dates only from 
1810 ; so the visitor will see within its circuit but few 
relics of its tragic and turbulent past. 

One would suppose that this church, this shrine of 
shrines, this sacred place which is ' the centre of the 
worship of Christendom,' would stand boldly upon a 
height, or would rise alone from a wide square, surrounded 
at a distance by adoring precincts. It should be too 
reverent a building to be touched or even approached by 
meaner walls. It should be an edifice that could be seen 
from afar off, and should spring, imperious and supreme, 
above all that struggling mass of ill-shaped houses, 
sycophant convents, and minor buildings which make up 
the body of Jerusalem. As a matter of fact the church is 
one of the least conspicuous buildings in the city. It is 
approached through a maze of lanes full of shops, and 
by that beggars' stair which has already been spoken 
of. This flight of steps, lined with the bodies of miser- 
able men, leads to a little courtyard, very ancient-looking 
and full of light. Here at one end stands the church, 
while the other sides of the courtyard are occupied by 
heavy, irregular walls with unintelligible buttresses, 
mysterious windows, and fragments of older buildings 
incorporated in their substance. They belong to various 
chapels and convents and so crowd upon the church 
that there is nothing to be seen of it but two doors, 
two windows, a fascinating gallery, and a plain, squat 
dome. It is a mere disjointed fragment of a church in 
a small square. 



72 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



The facade that is seen is curiously beautiful. It is 
built of biscuit-yellow stone and is just that shell of the 
twelfth-century church which escaped the fire of 1808. 
The windows are small and of unequal size. Both are 
sunk under heavy arches, while from the sill of one window 
to a stone ledge below there rests a common wooden 
ladder. Not even the dragoman could tell me why the 
ladder was there or who made use of it. There are two 
doors, but one is blocked with masonry. I suppose these 
doors are better known than are any church doors in 
Christendom, for photographs of the facade of the 
Church of the Holy Sepulchre are as widely scattered 
as are pictures of the Eiffel Tower or of the Bridge 
of Sighs. 

The open door may be looked upon as one of the most 
wonderful and most momentous portals in the world ; 
the door most dreamed about, most told about, the 
nearest to the gate of Heaven. How mighty a crowd 
of rapt pilgrims have passed, with bowed heads and 
streaming eyes, beneath the gloriously carved lintel of 
this entry. If they could all come back again, from 
the Crusader in his coat of mail, from the Palmer in his 
muddied gown, to the Knight of Queen Elizabeth, to 
the Squire of King Charles, and thence to the personally 
conducted tourist with his red-covered Baedeker, the 
queue of breathless, prayer-muttering, or wonder-stricken 
folk would reach from this very door, in one long line, 
round the circumference of the earth. 

On one side of the church is a venerable bell-tower 
with an open belfry, so that the bells can be seen. It 
was erected when Henry II was King of England and 



THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE 73 



before Richard Cceur de Lion came to the throne, and so 
it has been looking down into the courtyard for over 
seven hundred years. On the other side of the court, 
opposite to the campanile, is a little flight of steps which 
leads to the Chapel of the Agony. At the foot of these 
stairs lies buried Philip D'Aubigne, an English Crusader 
who died in 1236. The stone over his resting-place has 
been cracked, not, as may be supposed, by fanatical 
paynims, but by Christian priests who had a desperate 
fight here as lately as 1902. The subject of the fray was 
this very Chapel of the Agony. It is an instructive 
picture — this furious encounter between ministers of 
Christ above the tomb of a Crusader. 

There are certain sacred sites around the courtyard 
which will hardly impress the seeker after truth, as, for 
example, the olive tree which marks the spot where 
Abraham discovered the ram when about to sacrifice 
Isaac, or the hollow in a neighbouring pavement which 
indicates the position where the sacrifice was to have 
taken place. 

The quadrangle in which the church stands is occupied 
by beggars and hawkers and by strolling priests. The 
beggars have, as a rule, some choice deformity to 
display, while the hawkers spread their goods upon the 
beautiful ruddy yellow stones of the Crusaders' Court. 
They have for sale pieces of incense, articles made 
of olive wood ' from the Mount of Olives,' crucifixes in 
mother-of-pearl, rosaries of every kind, and the never- 
failing picture-postcard. 

On entering the church one steps from the bright 
outer world into a cavernous gloom. Immediately 



74 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



in front of the visitor there arises out of the shadows 
a lofty shrine, lit partly by the yellow sparks of innumer- 
able lamps and partly by the misty light which comes 
in through the entry. On either side of it are ghostly 
candelabra. Suspended from the as yet invisible ceiling 
are huge lamps in red bags. They look like red bats 
with folded wings hanging from the vault. Beneath 
lies the Stone of Unction upon which the body of Jesus 
was laid when it was anointed by Nicodemus with ' a 
mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound 
weight.' The stone, a slab of yellowish marble, is 
placed horizontally on the floor. It has often been 
changed and, indeed, the present slab was laid down 
as recently as 1808. Yet some Russian pilgrims who 
entered the church at the time threw themselves 
upon the ground and kissed this spurious marble 
ravenously. 

A few steps beyond the Stone of Unction one enters 
the Rotunda, where stands the Holy Sepulchre. This 
Rotunda is a plain stone building of no interest, erected 
in 1810. The central dome which surmounts it is a struc- 
ture of iron lined with painted tin. It was placed in 
position in 1868. The Rotunda, however, although 
quite modern, can claim to preserve with some pre- 
cision the ground-plan of Constantine's Church of the 
Resurrection. 

In the centre of the circular floor stands the tomb. 
My first view of it was marred by the fact that certain 
tourists were taking ' snapshots ' of one another, using 
the Sepulchre of Christ as a background. I might 
pause to say that before I left the building it did not 



THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE 75 



strike me that this episode was incongruous. The 
rambling, half-buried fabric has little of the odour of 
sanctity about it. It does not seem to be appropriate 
to any sane religion. The few worshippers one came 
upon appeared to be possessed by a delirium of adora- 
tion which was morbid and pitiable. They dropped 
down before the sacred spots like felled cattle. They 
kissed the stones and moaned and muttered like 
creatures filled with dread rather than with the solace 
of a comforting presence. The principal church behind 
the Rotunda is ablaze with extravagant decoration, 
with brass and gilt, with silver and daubs of colour ; 
festoons of glass balls swing from the ceiling, the air 
is thick with hanging lamps, the altar is spiked over 
with candles, while at every possible spot on the wall 
is a picture in crude tints of red and blue. The place 
is more like a gaudy oriental divan decked for some 
noisy festival than a spot sacred to Him who said ' learn 
of me ; for I am meek and lowly in heart : and ye shall 
find rest unto your souls.' 

Beyond the churches lies a confusing maze which 
seems to burrow under ground. There are dim crypts 
and cloisters, twilight passages full of deserted chapels, 
dark entries lit by the single spark of a swinging lamp, 
immense archways, colossal columns, mysterious stairs 
that are lost in the gloom of the roof, while everywhere 
are pictures in faded gilt and hanging candelabra in 
red bags. 

At every turn is some sacred site, such as the Chapel 
of the Parting of the Raiment, the Chapel of the Derision, 
the Chapel of the Nailing to the Cross. Indeed the 



76 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



Church of the Holy Sepulchre is, in its more visible 
parts, a show-place full of objects of doubtful authen- 
ticity, and, in its dark alleys and deep crypts, a kind of 
necromancer's cavern. 

The Holy Sepulchre itself is enclosed in a tiny cabin- 
like chapel, built of marble, which is the colour of a yellow 
autumn leaf. It appears to have been reconstructed 
in its present form in 1810. The entrance is made garish 
by huge candlesticks holding painted candles, by hanging 
lamps, by rows of pictures, and by gilt and bright metal 
wherever the same can be introduced. One enters through 
a small door into the Chapel of the Angels, a lamp-lit 
place only eleven feet long by ten feet wide. Here 
is placed a stone set in marble, which is that which was 
rolled away by the angel from the mouth of the sepul- 
chre. It is a part only of the same, for it may be 
remembered that the stone ' was very great.' 

By stooping down one then passes through a low 
and narrow doorway into the Chapel of the Sepulchre. 
This is a mere cell about six feet long by six feet wide. 
At the end stands a Greek priest on guard. There is 
no suggestion of a sepulchre. The actual tomb — if 
tomb there be — is covered with marble and converted 
into an altar. The place is made brilliant by the light 
of many little lamps. There is the usual display of 
candles and figures, while in the centre of the altar is 
a very tawdry vase of china containing a posy of 
flowers. The recalling of the doubts which have been 
cast upon the genuineness of this place robs it of its 
due solemnity. It is merely a chapel in a cell, yet the 
cell represents the heart of Christendom and occupies 



THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE 77 



a spot which, through many centuries, has been the 
most revered in the world. 

As we were leaving the chapel a woman, old, poor, 
and unhappy-looking, crept through the small door on 
her knees and, after kissing the stone that covered the 
tomb, laid her cheek upon it in the attitude of one who 
was tired but content. If she was secure in the belief 
that she had brought her trouble to the very spot where 
the body of Christ had lain, then the chapel is assuredly 
more than a place for the curious. 

In the side wall of the chapel is an oval opening which 
suggests the orifice of a shooting-gallery at a fair. Sir 
Rider Haggard compares it to the hawse-pipe in the 
bow of a steamer. It is through this opening that 
the sacred fire appears at the festival of Easter. The 
Christian church in authority here encourages the belief 
that, at a certain moment on Easter Eve, fire descends 
from Heaven to the Holy Sepulchre, where it is received 
by a minister of God, who passes it, in the form of a 
lighted taper, to the yelling multitude without. This 
Easter scene has been described by many with varying 
degrees of disgust. It is only to be equalled by those 
degrading religious orgies which are to be met with in 
the forests of savage Africa. 

At the Easter celebration the Rotunda is packed. 
Order is to some extent maintained by a strong force 
of Turkish soldiers, but in spite of these armed men 
some hundreds of worshippers have been crushed to 
death in past years. Before the episode of the fire takes 
place the devout endeavour to run round the tomb of 
Christ, leaping, jumping, and howling. Dean Stanley 



78 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



describes this part of the Church ritual as ' a mixture 
of prisoner's base, football, and leap-frog.' 1 

Later on the ceremony degenerates into a kind of 
witches' sabbath, the church being deafened by frenzied 
yells and screams, while its floor becomes as a boiling 
cauldron filled with arms and hands, with contorted, 
streaming faces, with writhing shoulders, backs, and 
knees. Of all accounts of this ' wholly irreligious tumult ' 
that given by Mr. Hichens is the most vivid. He wit- 
nessed the -orgy from a height in the Rotunda. ' I 
looked down,' he says, ' upon what seemed a vast crowd 
of demented people, who had thrown off every scrap of 
self-restraint, whose strange passions went naked for all 
to see, who were full of barbarous violence, savage ex- 
pectation, and the blood lust.' 2 In such manner does the 
Church of Christ lead the followers of Jesus along the 
paths of peace in this age of enlightenment. 

' Such,' writes Dean Stanley, ' is the Greek Easter — 
the greatest moral argument against the identity of the 
spot which it professes to honour — stripped indeed of 
some of its most revolting features, yet still, considering 
the place and the intention of the professed miracle, 
probably the most offensive imposture to be found in 
the world.' To this the man of God would reply — if 
he spoke candidly — that the fraud is perpetuated and 
the miracle maintained because ' there is money in it.' 

There is but one thing in the Rotunda which the 
visitor will contemplate with satisfaction. At the back 
of the self-assertive, over-decked Holy Sepulchre is a 

1 Loc. cit. p. 461. 

- The Holy Land, p. 291. (London. 1910.) 



THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE 79 



tiny chapel of dull wood. It belongs to the poor Copts 
and has been theirs since the sixteenth century. It is 
very quaint and is so simple, so childlike, and so modest, 
that it provides the only satisfactory religious feature 
that this great bazaar-like building can provide. 

Many of the ' sights ' in the church to which the 
dragoman would direct attention are merely wearisome. 
It is of no interest to view a ring of modern marble in a 
modern floor and to be told that it indicates the exact 
spot where Christ stood when he appeared to Mary 
Magdalene in the Garden ; on which occasion the poor, 
tearful woman, for a moment, supposed him to be the 
gardener. It is of even less interest to take a stick 
and to push it through a hole in a wall for the purpose 
of touching a fragment of stone which is said to be 
a part of the Column of the Scourging. How this 
particular piece of stone came to be discovered among 
the heaps of like stones which made up the ruins of 
Jerusalem we are not informed. It appears to have 
frequently changed both its size and its colour, while, 
on the other hand, the claim is made that the genuine 
column stands in the church of Santa Prassede at Rome. 

Another ' sight ' beloved by dragomans is provided 
in the Catholicon, where is a cup containing a flattened 
ball. This article indicates the centre of the world and 
will be viewed with curiosity by the astronomer and 
the maker of maps. We declined to see the dark place 
in which Christ, together with the two thieves, was 
imprisoned while the preparations for the crucifixion 
were being made. We also declined to see the stocks 
in which the feet of Christ were placed, as well as the 



8o THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



two impressions on the stone which show the actual 
footprints of the Redeemer. These things lie rotting in 
an intellectual dungeon of the world, buried from the 
wholesome light of modern reason and stifled under the 
shadow of imposture and superstition. 



VIII 



THE THIEF'S CHAPEL AND CALVARY 

Among the score and more chapels which spring out, 
with nightmare effect, at every turn and bend in the 
maze of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre there is none 
so picturesque as the Chapel of St. Helena. It is a sub- 
terranean place, approached by some thirty steps, and 
is lit by a dome supported upon four stunted pillars of 
immense girth. Each pillar is capped by an enormous 
top-heavy capital in the Byzantine style. It is the 
architecture of deformity. The chapel is very old. Some 
parts date from the seventh century, while most that 
is evident in pillar and vaulted roof belongs to the 
eleventh and twelfth centuries. The interior of the 
dome is decorated by crude paintings. Ghostly frescoes, 
strange by reason of great age, cover the walls. On the 
floor is a rough stone pavement, while from the dome 
hang festoons of chains bearing glass and porcelain balls. 
In the centre a great lamp is suspended in a red bag. 

At the far end of the crypt are roughly daubed shrines 
of warped wood devoted to a curiously assorted couple — 
to the Empress Helena and the Penitent Thief. In each 
shrine is an altar with a lighted lamp. It is interesting 

81 G 



82 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



to note that the altar of the Empress is a little larger 
than the altar of the thief. It would be still more inter- 
esting to know how this subtle gradation in size was 
arrived at and upon what standard of worshipfulness 
it was based. 

There is an intense fascination about this silent and 
mysterious cavern. It has the aspect of extreme, mum- 
bling old age. There is a deathlike chill in the air, 
a clamminess that creeps about the place like a mist. 
There is a smell of the grave, the slimy odour of damp 
earth. The flames of the two little lamps are so low that 
they appear to be suffocated by an insipid atmosphere 
which has remained unchanged for a thousand years. The 
place is buried and forgotten ; the woodwork is wrinkled 
like a parchment ; the beams are made leprous-looking 
by a pallid mould ; the walls are as sodden as if the place 
were filled every day, roof high, by a noisome tide. 

Surely in the depths of moonless nights, when the 
little lamps have spluttered out, and the light has faded 
from the strings of glass balls, there must be some 
recalling of the past in this astounding caravanserai 
where, as in an inn, there rest for a while the ghosts 
of the strangest of all comrades — an empress and a thief. 
It must be to such a place as this that the words of 
Habakkuk the prophet are fitting : 

' For the stone shall cry out of the wall, and the 
beam out of the timber shall answer it.' 

One other place, a place of supreme concern, remains 
to be seen. This is the place of the Crucifixion. It 
is reached, curious to say, by ascending a flight of 
stone stairs near to the door of the church. Golgotha, or 



THE THIEF'S CHAPEL AND CALVARY 83 



Calvary, is no longer open to the sky, but it is so enclosed 
as to make the floor of a low, vault-like chapel from the 
roof of which innumerable lamps are hanging. With 
every wish to be reverent I must confess that my first 
impression of this most sacred spot was the impression 
of a lamp shop, an idea which was encouraged by the 
overpowering smell of oil and by the chattering of a 
number of tourists who surveyed the chapel and the 
lamps with the air of intending purchasers. 

The actual spot of the Crucifixion is occupied by an 
altar, the natural rock being here overlaid with marble. 
An opening, lined with silver, shows the socket in the 
stone where the cross of Christ is said to have been 
inserted. It is very small. The sites of the crosses 
of the two thieves are also indicated. The three crosses 
are so close together that the outstretched arms of 
those who suffered on that day must have overlapped. 
Near by is a brass tablet which, when pushed aside, reveals 
the so-called ' cleft in the rock.' The cleft — a mere 
groove — is lined with ruddy marble and is but a few inches 
deep. It totally fails to make real the vivid account 
given by St. Matthew when Jesus cried again with a 
loud voice. ' And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent 
in twain from the top to the bottom ; and the earth did 
quake, and the rocks rent ; and the graves were opened.' 

The chapel is decorated with a restless straining after 
display. A painted ceiling surmounts lavishly painted 
walls. Seen through an atmosphere shimmering with 
brass and gilt, with silver and coloured glass, there is 
a vague vision of bright marble, of shining images and 
crosses, and a never-ending host of candles and lamps. 

G 2 



84 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



One would associate the conception of Calvary with 
a hushed, contemplative, peace-assuring spot and not 
with this strident showroom, hung about with the 
jingling gewgaws of a country fair. While it may serve 
to represent the craft of the priest it certainly fails to 
realise the spirit of the place. It is as incongruous as 
would be a mother's lullaby played on a cornet. Those 
who find comfort in the belief that 

' There is a green hill far away, 
Without a city wall ' 

and who would keep that vision clear and unspoiled, 
should never come nigh to Jerusalem. 



IX 



THE ROOF OF THE CHURCH 



The view of Jerusalem from the roof of the Church of 
the Holy Sepulchre is very gracious. After wandering 
through the twilight passages of the church, and after 
breathing a languid atmosphere of incense and oil, it is 
well to be in the sun again and under the clear air of 
heaven. Stretching eastwards is a view across the city 
to the encircling wall, and beyond the wall to the open 
country. Jerusalem appears as a pale yellow city, 
made up of domes and towers and box-like squares of 
whitened masonry with basin-shaped roofs and black 
chinks for windows. There is no sign of a street, but 
here and there is a glimpse of a quiet courtyard with 
possibly a splash of green in it. As a relief to the stacks 
of pale cubes, rising at all levels and facing all ways, 
will be a few patches of brown tiles, a grey shutter or an 
iron balcony, a sentinel-like cypress and even a palm or 
two. There are a few roofs of vivid red, a few walls of 
startling blue, while many crosses stand out against the 
cloudless sky. 

Beyond the city, across the Valley of Jehosaphat, 
are the Mount of Olives and the country that leads to 

85 



86 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



Bethany and the Jordan, while on the far horizon stand 
the Mountains of Moab. It is a poor, cheerless, unlovely 
country, dun-coloured like a beggar's cloak, barren and 
littered with stones. There is, at the moment, not a sign 
of a human being on the sorry roads, and a vision of such 
a land as this must have filled the eyes of the prophet 
when he wrote : ' Thus the land was desolate after them, 
that no man passed through nor returned : for they laid 
the pleasant land desolate.' 

The Mount of Olives is a brown ridge, very common- 
place, humble, and suburban. It is, I think, the least 
beautiful hill I can call to mind. Compared to a sleek, 
green down or the tree-covered ' hanger ' it is harsh and 
ugly. It is just a dry, stony hill, with a few starved olive 
trees and many modern buildings on its slopes, with a 
copious Jewish cemetery at its foot, like a vast stone- 
mason's yard, and, on its summit, a belvedere and a 
barrack as represented by the huge Russian tower and 
the new German hospice. This Olivet, this path to the 
village of Bethany, this way leading down to the Jordan, 
are all sacred sites of unquestionable genuineness. This 
is the country that was traversed by the feet of Christ ; 
this is the very view that, in every dip and knoll, was 
familiar to His eyes. This is a veritable part of the Holy 
Land, a little changed it may be as to its surface, but 
quite unaltered in its general outline. It is one of the few 
true things in Palestine, and one very wholesome to look 
upon after that surfeit of glamour and imposture which 
the church beneath one's feet provides. 

It was in this plain, unassuming country that the 
religion of Christ was taught. It was taught in the 



THE ROOF OF THE CHURCH 



87 



simplest language, in words that a child could understand, 
and by means of illustrations drawn from the lowliest 
subjects. There was in the teaching no stilted ritual, 
no gorgeous ceremony, no foreshadowing of the princely 
prelate or the chanting priest. It was a religion asso- 
ciated with such sounds as the splash of a fisherman's 
net in the lake, the patter of sheep, the call of the shep- 
herd, the tramp of the sower across the fields. As for 
the Teacher Himself, He was a man of the people, the son 
of a carpenter, Who knew no dwelling but the humblest, 
and Who, if He could be seen walking now along the road 
that stretches away towards Bethany, would be clad 
in no better garb than that of the fellah of to-day. 
If one were, on the other hand, to seek the teacher of the 
present time there would appear upon the road a bishop, 
resplendent in vestments of great price, who lorded it in 
a palace and who would carry, as a symbol of his office, 
the pastoral staff. This staff, a costly article of silver 
gilded with gold and rich with ornament, is a vulgar 
mockery of the simple iron crook of the Good Shepherd. 
The difference between the two well represents the 
gulf that separates the Christian faith as it was first 
taught from the Christian Church with its masquerade 
of mitres and vestments, and its tawdry machinery of 
worship. The one religion has become broken up into a 
hundred warring sects who regard one another with great 
malignancy and who have given rise to those ' contentions 
and jealousies which, from the earliest time to the present 
day, have been the bane of the history of the Christian 
Church.' Baedeker, in referring to the native Christians 
of Jerusalem, states that ' the bitter war which rages 



88 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



among them is carried on with very foul weapons, and 
the contempt with which the orthodox Jews and 
Mohammedans look down on the Christians is only too 
well deserved.' 

It is an unanswerable testimony to the power and 
vitality of the Christian faith that it should not only have 
survived but should have spread itself over the entire 
earth in spite of the slough of corruption through which 
the ministers of the Gospel have dragged it. Speaking of 
the morality and pursuits of the disciples of Christ in this 
very Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Dean Stanley writes 
as follows : 1 ' It would be an easy though melancholy 
task to tell how the Armenians stole the Angel's Stone 
from the ante-chapel of the Sepulchre — how the Latins 
procured a firman to stop the repairs of the dome by the 
Greeks — how the Greeks demolished the tombs of the 
Latin Kings, Godfrey and Baldwin, in the resting-place 
which those two heroic chiefs had chosen for themselves 
at the foot of Calvary — how, in the bloody conflicts of 
Easter, the English traveller was taunted by the Latin 
monks with eating the bread of their convent, and not 
fighting for them in the Church — how the Abyssinian 
convent was left vacant for the Greeks in the panic raised 
when a drunken Abyssinian monk shot the muezzin 
going his rounds on the top of Omar's minaret — how, 
after the great fire of 1808, which fire itself the Latins 
charge to the ambition of the Greek monks, two years of 
time and two-thirds of the cost of the restoration were 
consumed in the endeavours of each party, by bribes 
and litigations, to overrule and eject the others from the 

1 Sinai and Palestine, p. 458 (London. 1881.) 



THE ROOF OF THE CHURCH 89 



places they had respectively occupied in the ancient 
arrangement of the Churches/ When one finds the 
followers of the Redeemer practising such crimes as 
theft and sacrilege, murder and drunkenness, arson and 
church fighting, corruption and treachery, upon the very 
spot that they themselves claim to be the scene of the 
Crucifixion, and yet at the same time finds the faith 
gaining power in the world, it seems to be assured that 
Christianity will outlast both the Christian Church and 
the self-glorifying inventions of her priests. 



X 



THE SUMMIT OF MOUNT MORIAH 

Without doubt the most beautiful building in Jerusalem 
is the Mohammedan shrine known as the Dome of the 
Rock. More than that, it may claim to be one of the 
most exquisite buildings in the world. It is sometimes 
called the Mosque of Omar, but to this title there are two 
objections : in the first place it was not built by Omar, 
and, secondly, it is not a mosque. The structure stands 
on or about the sites of Solomon's Temple and of that 
other temple, built by Herod, in which men worshipped 
at the time of Christ. Of these two temples no traces now 
exist unless they be in the form of certain deeply buried 
foundations which were laid to maintain level surfaces 
upon the summit of an uneven hill. This hill is Mount 
Moriah, the northern height of that slope which is now 
called Ophel and which is assumed to represent the hill 
of Zion, upon which stood the City of David (page 43). 
The rock concerned in the title ' The Dome of the Rock ' 
is an exposed pinnacle of Mount Moriah which rises up, 
bare and undisturbed, in the centre of the shrine. The 
building itself seems to have been erected in the year 

a.d. 691, and to have been improved and enlarged in 

90 



THE SUMMIT OF MOUNT MORIAH 91 



a.d. 831. It can claim, therefore, to have lived through 
a period of one thousand two hundred years. 

Before visiting the Dome it is necessary to obtain, 
through the visitor's Consul, the permission of the 
Turkish authorities to enter the place. The visitor also 
must be accompanied by a Turkish soldier in order that 
he may be protected from violence. This precaution 
sounds perilous, but it is merely a graceful, if complex, 
procedure for the acquiring of baksheesh. The Turkish 
guard who escorted us, and upon whom the safety of our 
lives theoretically depended, was an amiable but weary- 
looking man whose head and face were wrapped up in a 
woman's plaid shawl which magnified the size of the 
cranium immensely. Out of the folds of the shawl, which 
concealed all but his eyes, he muttered reassuredly from 
time to time. Possibly he implored us not to be anxious. 
He was armed with a sword of great size, while under his 
disengaged arm he carried an umbrella. In general 
aspect he was an ingenious compromise between an 
Eastern warrior and a countryman returning from the 
dentist. Happily he had no occasion to draw his 
scimitar 'to carve the casques of men,' but we found 
his umbrella a protection, for the day was wet. 

The approach to the Dome is across the Tyropceon 
Valley by the way of the cotton merchants' bazaar. 
This is a long, empty, stinking tunnel, with a roof of 
solid masonry and, on either side, immense cavernous 
vaults built also of stone. The cotton merchants have 
vanished ; the place is deserted ; while the massive 
crypts where the cotton was piled are now used for 
storing manure. As an illustration of Turkish views 



92 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 

upon sanitation the place is not uninstructive. Sir 
Rider Haggard describes this awful passage as ' a 
covered-in ally of a nlthiness so peculiar and surpassing 
that before it everything else of the kind which I have 
seen in the Holy Land sink its ineffectual stench.' 

After escaping from the poisonous gloom of the 
cotton merchants' bazaar one comes suddenly upon a 
great level square, paved with clean white stones, dazzling 
as a plain of snow. The square is open to the heavens 
and to all that wide country which stretches to the east 
from the Mount of Olives to the far-away mountains of 
Moab. On the platform stands the shrine, isolated and 
alone, a wonder of yellow and blue-green walls, capped 
by a dome the colour of old bronze. The immense 
area is empty ; there is not a living creature to be seen. 
The only thing that moves upon it is the shadow of a 
cloud creeping across the broad expanse. The silence of 
the spot is absolute. After the noise of the bazaar the 
stillness makes one dumb. After the mean and narrow 
lanes the smooth, open platform seems to be vast and 
majestic as the sea. After the restless crowds which fill 
the city this place becomes at once an awe-inspiring 
solitude. After the fetid atmosphere of the town the 
rush of keen air that sweeps across this spotless terrace 
is as a cleansing stream. 

It is impossible not to compare this solemn and 
silent court with the cramped yard around the Church 
of the Holy Sepulchre, where is ever a rabble of beggars 
and a mob of pedlars selling crosses and postcards. 
The Mohammedan, it will be seen, holds that a proper 
reverence should mark the precincts of his holy places. 



THE SUMMIT OF MOUNT MORIAH 



On this platform of stone stood that marvellous 
Temple built by Solomon. It was built amidst just 
such a silence as even now broods over the spot, for 
' the house, when it was in building, was built of stone 
made ready before it was brought thither : so that there 
was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron heard 
in the house, while it was in building.' 

This great house, which was commenced in the month 
Zif, had ' windows of narrow lights,' and the length 
of it was threescore cubits. ' The cedar of the house 
within was carved with knops and open flowers,' while 
the beams and walls were overlaid with the gold of 
Parvaim. It was here, too, that were placed the two 
cherubims of image work whose wings spread themselves 
forth twenty cubits. It was here also that stood the 
molten sea which was round in compass and ten cubits 
from brim to brim, while the edge of it was ' like the 
work of the brim of a cup, with flowers of lilies.' It 
was a building dazzling from floor to ceiling with gold, 
for not only was it lined with gold, but ' all the 
vessels that pertained unto the house ' — the candlesticks, 
the tongs, the bowls, the snuffers, the basins, and the 
spoons — were made by Solomon of pure gold. The 
lamps, too, ' made he of gold, and that perfect gold.' 
It was from the open terrace also that the column of 
smoke from the great altar rose upwards into the air. 
On a still day it would stand like a grey column against 
the background of the far hills and the blue sky. 

On that side of the Temple area which abuts upon 
Jerusalem there stands, at a respectful distance, a range 
of irregular buildings fashioned of stone. They have 



94 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 

dark archways, patched and seamed walls with furtive 
windows, and are generally suggestive of grave mystery. 
They are not apparently dwelling-houses, nor are they 
public buildings. They seem designed rather to make the 
background for some drama full of dread deeds and 
sinister intents. I avoided making any inquiry about 
them, for their fascination is bound up in their inscrut- 
ability, and the charm would vanish if one were told 
that they were merely discarded barracks or abandoned 
warehouses. 

The Dome of the Rock is an octagonal building most 
wonderful in its colouring. The lower walls are of fine 
marble of the tint of old ivory. Above them comes 
a row of pointed windows filled with stained glass. The 
walls between the windows are covered with many- 
coloured Persian tiles, the general effect of which is to 
produce a tremulous shimmer of blue and green like 
that on a beetle's back. Above the windows are texts 
from the Koran in the form of a bright band of white 
kufic letters in a setting of deep blue. Over the 
octagon is the dome, which is of that violet-grey colour 
to be seen on a long-buried bronze sword. So between 
the platform of white and the sky of lapis lazuli 
stands this exquisite fabric which, as it leaves the 
ground, changes from faint yellow to an iridescent blue, 
shot with green, and then, in the dome, to a grey 
deepened with blue. The whole structure suggests a 
rare casket of ivory and porcelain, fragile and tender, 
placed alone in the centre of a plateau of stone. 

Within the building all is dark. Until one becomes 
accustomed to the gloom there is merely an impression 



THE SUMMIT OF MOUNT MORIAH 



of a great round chamber with a luminous dome high up 
in the air and on the ground a grille of gilded metal 
surrounding an inner circle of purple pillars capped with 
gold. The floor is covered with red Persian carpets 
and yellow mats. Not a sound of a footstep can be 
heard. No one speaks, or speaks only in a whisper, 
while, moving about in the shadows, are men in long 
brown robes with turbans on their heads. This is a 
holy reverential place, the shrine of a grave religion, 
a place of unfathomable calm. It is in great contrast 
with the bazaar-like Church of the Holy Sepulchre, 
which is holy only in name. 

A gate leads through the grille to the area beneath 
the Dome. This grille is a beautiful screen of wrought 
iron made by the French about the end of the twelfth 
century. There is a passage within the iron screen, 
limited, on its inner side, by a circular wooden paling 
curiously panelled and painted in faint colours. Within 
the paling is the bare rock which the shrine protects. 

The interior of the Dome is supremely beautiful, 
while the softened light that fills it is so magical in colour 
that it is, I think, unlike any light that ever illumined 
nave or aisle. The upper part of the Dome is a blaze of 
red and gold blended in an intricate, quivering pattern. 
Then comes a row of windows filled with stained glass. 
The colours which are splashed on the irregular panes 
are mostly green and yellow, blue and red, and the effect 
produced is only comparable to that which would be 
presented by a rich Persian carpet if it had been rendered 
translucent and then held up against the light. The 
lower part of the Dome is lined with what might be 



96 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



elaborate and faded needlework in which some threads 
are grey, some gold, and some green. The surface 
glistens with a thousand bright spots and is broken 
horizontally by two narrow bands of red and gold. 
Between the outer pillars of the shrine stretch iron rods 
from which are suspended tiny lamps of clear glass and 
of the very simplest pattern. They are arranged always, 
so far as I observed, in little clusters of five or of seven* 
and make, I should imagine, the most appropriate 
illumination that any place of worship could provide. 

Within the wooden paling and under the centre of 
the Dome is the Holy Rock. It is a mass of bare natural 
stone, rugged and uncouth, of a warm yellow colour 
faintly flushed with red. It rises to the height of 
some five feet and is stated to measure fifty-eight feet in 
one direction and forty-four feet in the other. It is 
the actual summit of Mount Moriah, a spur of rock 
standing now just as it stood, open to the sun and 
the rain, in the days when Solomon was King. It 
is true that the Crusaders covered it for a time with 
marble and placed an altar upon it, but of this bar- 
baric treatment scarcely a scar remains. A pinnacle 
of rock that has remained unchanged since it met 
the sight of the first Jebusite adventurers who ever 
penetrated to this solitude is surely more worshipful 
than a new altar fresh from the workshops of Italy or 
France. There are many who hold to the belief that 
upon this very shoulder of rock there stood the Altar 
of Burnt Offering. Be that as it may, it will suffice for 
most that they can see here at least one unsullied piece 
of holy ground. They can see, moreover, in this place 



THE SUMMIT OF MOUNT MORIAH 97 



of quietude and peace an expression of the most intense 
devotion. In their oblation to their God the shrine- 
builders have given of their best, have given their all, 
the labour of years, the invention of minds striving 
to ascribe the fittest glory to Heaven, the imagination 
of brains seeking to embody the ecstasy of worship. 

There are many legends connected with the Dome 
of the Rock, some of which are curiously fantastic. For 
example, there is near the north door of the shrine a 
slab of jasper let into the ground. From the surface of 
the slab three or four bright-headed nails project. It is 
impossible to suppose that the imaginative Eastern mind 
could leave this nail-studded piece of jasper without a 
story. So the story is as follows. The slab once decorated 
the lid of Solomon's tomb, and into it Mohammed 
drove nineteen golden nails. Why Mohammed under- 
took this curious piece of work, and why the nails were 
exactly nineteen in number is not known. It was found 
by some observant person that a nail fell out at the end 
of certain periods of time and it was concluded that 
when the last fell away the world would come to an end. 
One day the Devil, who had discovered the secret of 
the nails, came slyly to the spot and began to pull out 
the nails as fast as he could. In this most nefarious 
and heartless work he was ' fortunately discovered by 
the Angel Gabriel,' who at once made him leave off 
and drove him away. But for this happy intervention 
of the angel the world might have come to an end long 
ago. In any case the life of the globe has been much 
shortened by this wanton mischief, for there are only 
three and a half nails left. It is very much to be hoped 

H 



98 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 

that no careless tourist will knock out the few that 
remain with his heel as he stumbles about in the 
dark. 

Then, again, not very far away from the Dome of 
the Rock is a well or cistern called the Leaf Fountain. 
It acquired this pretty name under the following 
circumstances. Once upon a time a careless man, who 
was a friend of the Caliph Omar, let his pitcher fall into 
this well when he came to draw water. He naturally 
at once climbed down the well for the purpose of 
recovering the pitcher. Now any little girl who is 
versed in fairy stories needs not to be told that when 
he reached the bottom of the well he discovered a very 
curious-looking door. He naturally opened the door 
and, passing through the entry, found himself, according 
to precedent, in an enchanting garden with many or- 
chards in it. When he came to explore this wonderful 
spot he found it more marvellous than he could have 
imagined any place to be. 

Feeling that his friends in Jerusalem would never 
believe his bare story, he picked a leaf off one of the 
trees and tucked it behind his ear. He put the leaf 
there in order that he might have both hands free to 
climb up the side of the well again. Having, no doubt, 
taken care to close the door at the bottom after him, 
he reached the top of the well without difficulty. The 
story does not relate if he got his pitcher back or not. 
The most extraordinary thing happened to the leaf. 
The man, of course, kept it, but to his surprise not only 
did it never fade, but it ever preserved its delicious 
green colour with all its original freshness and softness. 




THE DOME OF THE ROCK 



THE SUMMIT OF MOUNT MORIAH 99 



It therefore became evident in time that the garden 
he had strolled into when he was looking for his pitcher 
was no less than the Garden of Paradise. I am afraid 
that the door at the bottom of the well will never be 
found by anyone else, so it is not worth any boy's 
while to drop a pitcher down for the sake of making the 
search. The reason is this. In old days the water 
came to the well all the way from Bethlehem through 
a subterranean conduit. This is very mysterious and 
very appropriate ; but the people of Bethlehem began 
to meddle with this water supply, so in order to obtain 
a ' constant service ' for the Leaf Fountain what is 
called ' a four-inch iron pipe ' was laid down in the year 
of our Lord 1901. Now it may be safe to conclude 
that a four-inch iron pipe direct from Birmingham does 
not run outside any door that leads into Paradise. 

There are very many things of interest about the 
Temple area besides the legends and the stories. Among 
such is the Mosque El-Aksa, which was, at the beginning 
of its days, a sixth-century church dedicated to the 
Virgin Mary. It was converted into a mosque by the 
enthusiastic Omar. This church turned mosque is a 
curiously hybrid structure which, although it has been 
subjected to an infinite number of ' restorations ' and 
rebuildings, still presents traces of its original mag- 
nificence. It is a kind of architectural olla podrida, 
and among the medley of stones that make it up 
many very beautiful features may still be discovered. 
Incidentally attention is drawn to a spot near the main 
entrance where the murderers of Thomas a Becket, 
Archbishop of Canterbury, lie buried. 

H 2 



ioo THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



There are some extraordinary crypts and substruc- 
tures beneath the Temple area. The most astonishing 
is a subterranean passage where is a flight of steps 
divided down the middle by massive piers of great 
antiquity. It is suggested that this passage is a relic of 
the magnificent stair which led up the slope of Mount 
Moriah from that gate of the city which, in Solomon's 
days, was by the pool of Siloam. It was this stair 
which Solomon pointed out to the Queen of Sheba 
as the ' ascent by which he went up into the house of 
the Lord,' and when she had seen it and had noted 
also ' the meat of his table, . . . and the attendance 
of his ministers, and their apparel' she was filled 
with such amazement that ' there was no more spirit 
in her.' 

There are also those far-reaching subterranean pas- 
sages, the vaulting of which is supported by titanic 
piers, which are known as Solomon's stables. Although 
Solomon knew them not, and although they were prob- 
ably only used as stables by the Crusaders, it would 
appear that many of the great stones of the pillars are 
of extreme antiquity. 

Finally, in that part of the city wall which encloses 
the Temple area on its eastern quarter is the Golden 
Gate. This gate is blocked up with masonry on the 
outer side and is beautiful only in its name. It is a 
square, unfriendly-looking mass of stone which might 
as well be called the Dumb Gate as the Golden. It is 
supposed by some that it was through this portal that 
Christ passed when He made His triumphal entry from 
Bethany. Those who are experts in the reading of 



THE SUMMIT OF MOUNT MORIAH 101 



sermons in stones state that the present structure 
cannot be older than the sixth or seventh century after 
Christ, and that in its general character it is Byzantine. 
The gate is one of the many disappointing things in 
Jerusalem. 



XI 



OLIVET AND THE GARDEN 

The Mount of Olives, as has already been said, is a 
dispirited-looking slope, littered with stones, wrinkled 
with lines of limestone walls, and mocked by a number 
of recent buildings of defiant ugliness. Once only 
during our stay in Jerusalem did the poor mean place 
look beautiful. It was on a morning when we found 
the city and the whole country round about deep under 
snow. The sky was blue, the sun unclouded, and 
Olivet a hill of pure white from foot to summit. The 
landscape was marvellously softened. The country had 
lost its severity and had become even tender-looking. 
The snow had covered up the bareness of the hill, 
had cloaked its poverty, and had hidden the wretched 
crop of stones which filled its fields. Even the new 
buildings which dot the slope in ungainly blotches 
gave less evidence of their effrontery, while the deep 
green cypresses in the Garden of Gethsemane and the 
rose-yellow walls of the city, as they stood out against 
the snow, were very beautiful to see. 

There are now but few olive trees growing on the 
hill, but these, where they have been left undisturbed, 

I02 



OLIVET AND THE GARDEN 



form thickets which, although scanty and starveling, 
yet preserve some memory of the charm which must 
have once belonged to the spot. Of the olive tree 
Ruskin says it is well ' to have loved it for Christ's 
sake.' 1 He describes ' the pointed fretwork of its 
light and narrow leaves, inlaid on the blue field of the 
sky : . . and the softness of the mantle, silver grey, 
and tender like the down on a bird's breast, with which 
it veils the undulations of the mountains.' It is this 
distant effect of the tree, as of 'a rounded mass or 
ball of downy foliage,' which so tempers the crudeness 
of the hill and which hides so well its sour surface. 

The view of Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives 
is a view of great fascination. Before one stretches a 
compact city, a walled town, the confines of which 
are abruptly marked by the straight unbroken wall. 
Outside the wall is the open country, severely simple, 
and deserted save for a few wandering goats. Within 
is the complex crowd of roofs and steeples, of towers, 
domes, and minarets which make up the amazing city. 
The contrast is shrewdly made, for from the foot of the 
wall the ground, bare as a desert, slopes down to the 
empty valley of the Kedron, while upon the other side 
is a teeming town packed with habitations and with 
men. The general colour of the city is a soft yellowish 
grey, a tint so faint, indeed, that the place looks ghostly 
and unreal. Once in the day, and once only, just at 
the time when the sun has capped the crest of Olivet, 
the city is golden. The square-cut masonry of the 
Golden Gate makes the one break in the monotonous 

Stones of Venice, vol. iii. p. 176, 



104 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 

line of wall, and if it was through this portal that Christ 
made His triumphal entry into Jerusalem it is possible 
to picture the procession winding across the valley, as it 
would have appeared to the old people of Bethany who 
had followed as far as the top of the mount. 

As may be supposed, there are many ' sacred sites ' 
about this notable hill. At the foot of the mount is 
the tomb of the Virgin — where, the monks aver, she 
was buried by the apostles and where she lay until her 
assumption. Here also are the tombs of her parents. 
This spot is protected by a church of some antiquity, the 
greater part of which is below the level of the ground. 
The church and its contents impose a severe strain upon 
the credulous, for of the many relics displayed it is 
heartlessly affirmed ' not one is genuine.' On the hill- 
side is shown the exact spot where Christ wept over the 
city, a spot ' still undefiled and unhallowed by mosque 
or church, chapel, or tower.' 1 An uneasy -looking rock 
indicates the place where Peter, James, and John fell 
asleep during Christ's agony in the garden. Not far 
from it a fragment of a column marks the spot where 
Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss. 

Near the summit of the hill is the Chapel of the 
Ascension, which covers the precise part of the earth 
last touched by the feet of Christ before He was carried 
into Heaven. More than that, in a marble enclosure 
is exhibited the impression of the right foot of Christ, 
turned southwards. 

Of these and like holy sites Dean Stanley writes in this 
wise : ' These localities have, indeed, no real connection 

1 Sinai and Palestine, by Dean Stanley, p. 190. (London. 1881.) 



OLIVET AND THE GARDEN 105 



with Him. . . . The desolation and degradation which 
have so often left on those who visit Jerusalem the 
impression of an accursed city, read in this sense a 
true lesson : " He is not here. He is risen." ' 

At the foot of Olivet is the garden of gardens — the 
Garden of Gethsemane. There is no evidence that the 
Gethsemane of the time of Christ was a garden in 
the sense in which the term is now employed. The 
Franciscan monks who tend this little place have accepted 
the term in its present meaning and have produced a 
formal garden of the very latest type. The garden is a 
small square enclosure surrounded by high walls of 
recent construction, and is situated at a point where 
two roads meet. It is not happy in its placing, for 
just beyond it is a new and extravagant Russian 
church crowned with bulbous domes, heavily overlaid 
with gilt, and suggesting nothing so nearly as an 
entertainment kiosk at the end of a pier. 

As to the genuineness of the site Professor Dalman, 
speaking of Christ's last hours in the garden, writes as 
follows : * His intention clearly was to retire where He 
might be undisturbed by any, even by the traitor, 
until He should be ready. He would, therefore, seek 
for the most secluded spot. This could not be found 
to the south or east hard by important public roads, 
least of all where " Gethsemane " is now shown ; but 
rather to the north, where no road followed the valley, 
or crossed over the mountain. Here only could there 
be a " garden." ' 1 

At the present spot there is within the high wall 

1 Temple Dictionary of the Bible, p. 222. (London. 1910.) 



io6 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



a path which follows closely the sides of the square. 
To this path the visitor is restricted. The garden itself 
is in the centre of the enclosure. It is an ordinary 
little suburban garden, precisely of such a type as 
may be seen, a hundred times over, in Brixton or in 
Clapham, or around a signalman's box by a quiet rail- 
way station. It is laid out in little paths and beds full 
of marigolds and stocks and of plants in pots. At the 
end of the formal plot is a greenhouse — a greenhouse in 
Gethsemane ! The garden is within an iron cage or 
fence such as one sees at a zoological collection. The 
object of the same is not to keep any creature in but 
to keep the pilgrim out. But for the iron rails and 
bars the pilgrims would strip the garden in a week and 
leave it barer than would a flight of locusts. Every 
tree that overhangs the path is protected by strong 
wire netting, so that even the most agile pilgrim could 
not, by leaping in the air, obtain so much as a leaf. 

There are some beautiful cypresses in the place, and 
some eight very ancient olive trees. No tree in the world 
can look so old as an olive, and these few contorted and 
wrinkled veterans look older than any living thing I 
have ever come upon. They present a morbid realisation 
of the most extreme degree of senility that it is possible 
to imagine. They are so grey, so bent, so shrivelled, 
so sapless, that their deformed bodies and limbs, covered 
as they are by horrible outgrowths, might have been 
already dead a century. Apart from these infirm old 
trees the garden is a child's garden and is tended with 
more than a child's devotion and tenderness. The 
Franciscan monks who keep the garden as it is are 



OLIVET AND THE GARDEN 



so evidently sincere in their care of it, and so happy in 
the conviction that it is what Gethsemane should be, 
that one cannot but hope that the learned may be 
wrong and that this small quaint retreat marks the 
spot ' over the brook Cedron, where was a garden,' 
where Christ was 'exceeding sorrowful, even unto 
death,' and where He begged of His disciples 'tarry ye 
here, and watch with me.' 

There is one thing growing in the garden, under the 
old olive trees, that fits it well. It is a bush of rosemary. 
So here ' there's rosemary, that's for remembrance : 
pray you, love, remember.' 



XII 



TOMBS AND POOLS 

One of the most pleasant and picturesque walks in 
Jerusalem is round the city, within the walls, especially 
on the southern side of the town. This kind of desultory 
ramble, however, is not encouraged by any self-respecting 
dragoman, for the strict ritual of a visit to Jerusalem 
enforces — after the churches have been ' done ' — an 
inspection of certain tombs and pools. These are not 
pleasant places, and the viewing of the same in many 
instances suggests such a visit as a sanitary inspector 
would be called upon to pay. 

In the Gospel according to St. John it is written : 
' Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, 
which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having 
five porches. In these lay a great multitude of impotent 
folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of 
the water.' This account suggests a wide sheet of limpid 
water surrounded by a cloister of some magnitude, for it 
will be noted that the multitude who came to the pool 
was ' great.' The pool of to-day is far down in the 
earth at the bottom of a pit delved out of a deposit 
of vague ruins. At the summit of the excavation, in 

108 



TOMBS AND POOLS 



place of a sheep market, is a modern laundry with a 
corrugated iron roof, and around it a quite extraordinary- 
number of stockings hanging out to dry. A stone stair, 
very steep and narrow, leads down the side of the pit 
and finally ends before a small cistern or reservoir cut 
out of the rock and arched over by ancient vaulting. 
In the cistern, which could not accommodate a larger 
multitude than five or six, is water which would probably 
be condemned by any medical officer of health. This is 
the pool of Bethesda. 

Among the debris through which the shaft leading to 
the ' Pool ' has pierced are the ruins of two churches. 
The present church which stands upon the spot is the 
ancient and interesting Church of St. Anne. It is dedicated 
to the mother of the Virgin Mary, who is stated to have 
lived in a cave which is still shown to believers. In this 
cave the Virgin Mary was born. It is very noteworthy 
that many of the sacred sites in the Holy Land are in 
or about caves, and, were these sites genuine, one could 
only conclude that the humbler folk at the time of 
Christ were all cave-dwellers. 

The Pool of Siloam is described by Sir Rider Haggard 
as ' an evil-smelling mud hole.' It is a wretched spot, 
among the disordered ruins of which have been dis- 
covered miscellaneous fragments of a bath house, a 
basilica, a flight of steps, and a paved street. Out of 
these fragments it may be possible for the imaginative 
to reconstruct the Pool where the blind man ' went 
and washed,' and even to conceive that it was along 
this paved street that he felt his way, tapping with 
a stick. The village of Siloam is, I think, the most 



no THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



abject hamlet I can call to mind. It is made up of 
more or less ruinous, earth-coloured houses and hovels 
clinging to an uncharitable slope. At a distance it 
is not easy to tell the dwellings from the rocks, while 
certain of the ancient tombs of the place are turned 
into habitations for the living. It is appropriate 
that the Leper Hospital should have been established 
on the outskirts of this inhuman-looking abode of men. 

If rich in nothing else Jerusalem is at least rich in 
tombs. Prominent among these is the Tomb of David. 
This term is applied to a picturesque collection of ancient 
Mohammedan buildings. The tomb is not visible to the 
eye, but the visitor is assured that it exists some- 
where in the underground mysteries of the place. An 
opportunity of verifying this assurance is not given. 
On the first floor of the premises is the upper chamber, 
or Csenaculum, in which it is said that the Last Supper 
was held. The fee for admission is from one to two 
francs. The upper chamber is a portion of a medieval 
church, divided in the middle by a couple of columns. 
The ceiling is vaulted and the whole work is ascribed to 
the fourteenth century. The stone on which the disciples 
sat when the Lord washed their feet is on exhibition. 

Fancy has been very exuberant and very detailed 
in this quarter of Jerusalem, for near by are the house 
of Caiaphas, the spot where Peter was standing when 
he denied Christ, and the exact place where the cock 
crew. 

Among the other tombs which the tourist is expected 
to visit are the Tombs of the Kings, the Tombs of the 
Judges, and the Tombs of the Prophets. These are all 



TOMBS AND POOLS 



in 



rock tombs of some antiquity. The names they bear 
are purely fanciful, for they have never afforded a resting- 
place to a king of Judah, to a judge of Israel, or to any 
one of the many prophets, greater or less. The most 
interesting of these are the Tombs of the Kings, an ex- 
tensive series of rock-hewn catacombs which are believed 
to be the burying-places of Queen Helena of Adiabene 
and her family. The tombs are approached by a wide 
staircase cut in the rock, where can be seen the channels 
for conducting water to the cisterns below. The cisterns 
are in perfect preservation and serve to show with what 
ceremonial the burial of the dead was carried out in 
the first century. The actual tombs are entered through 
an elaborately carved portal, and as there are receptacles 
for over seventy bodies the underground chambers are 
far extending. There are both rock shelves for bodies 
and shaft tombs. By far the most attractive feature 
of this burying-place is afforded by the fact that one 
entrance of the tomb is closed by a large round stone 
which is still in place, in a sloping groove cut out of the 
rock. It serves to make very clear the expression ' And 
they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre.' 

A most conspicuous tomb stands in the valley of 
the Kedron. It is called the Tomb of Absalom. It 
is a strange-looking monument composed of a square 
building decorated by pillars with Ionic capitals sup- 
porting a Doric architrave. Above this rises a curious 
pagoda-like steeple of stone, the summit of which would 
seem to be carved to imitate an opening flower. The 
monument is ascribed to the Maccaba^an period. Who 
lies buried in this place is unknown, for the curious 



ii2 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 

structure does certainly not mark the resting-place of 
the adventurous Absalom, nor can it be that pathetic 
memorial he erected for himself. The story of Absalom's 
burying and of his monument is told in the Bible in the 
following words : ' And they took Absalom, and cast 
him into a great pit in the wood, and laid a very great 
heap of stones upon him : and all Israel fled every one 
to his tent. Now Absalom in his lifetime had taken 
and reared up for himself a pillar, which is in the king's 
dale : for he said, I have no son to keep my name in 
remembrance : and he called the pillar after his own 
name : and it is called unto this day, Absalom's place.' 
Unfortunately for the hope to be never forgotten it 
cannot be that the time-battered cenotaph the tourist 
is dragged to stare at is any relic of Absalom's Place in 
the King's Dale. 



XIII 



THE MOANING BY THE WALL 

The most living thing in Jerusalem is the spectacle 
provided at the Jew's Wailing-place, just outside the 
Temple area, on certain days of the week. It is a 
spectacle, dramatic and affecting. It expresses in one 
slight but vivid tableau a calamitous episode in the 
history of the city. It serves to keep in remembrance 
the great sorrow of a nation. It signifies the aspiration 
of a people — if not materially, at least by sentiment and 
symbol. 

The Hebrews who possessed themselves of the eastern 
corner of the Mediterranean were a brave, determined, 
and adventurous people. In their impetuous advance 
they carried everything before them. They established 
themselves in the city of Jerusalem and there built on 
the height their great Temple. This Temple held all 
that was most sacred in the religion of Israel. It was 
the heart of the nation, the depository of its hopes 
and its ambitions, the one rallying point of clansmen 
who were losing other ties of brotherhood. 

Then came the onslaught of a stronger power ; the 

grip upon the height was loosened ; the people wavered 

113 1 



H4 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



and fell back from the walls, so that in a while all was 
lost. The Temple was destroyed ; the sacred things 
were scattered to the winds, and the people were driven 
away like raided cattle. They still, however, remained 
a people. They were still bound together by a common 
faith and common traditions. They still held the spot 
where the Temple had stood to be the one most holy on 
earth. Thus it is that for centuries past pious Jews 
have gathered without the wall of their desecrated 
sanctuary, and have there bewailed the downfall of 
Jerusalem, and have there prayed for the restoration 
of their once great kingdom. 

The lamentable litany is ever the same. The weary 
chant has never changed. Still without the Temple 
wall the cry goes up : 

' For the palace that lies desolate : 
For the walls that are overthrown : 
For our great men who he dead.' 

The prayer is poured forth to the Redeemer of Zion 
to gather again the children of Jerusalem, so that the 
kingdom may return to the Holy Hill and comfort 
may come upon those who mourn over the city. This 
is the dirge of the Wailing-place, the outcasts' lamen- 
tation, the moaning of the wall. It is to be heard to 
this very day, and yet eighteen hundred years have 
passed since the Temple was finally destroyed. Was 
there ever such a grief as this ! Was ever a wrong so 
long remembered : has ever a hope so long survived ! 

The Wailing-place is reached by many devious ways : 
by stairs slimy with dirt, by vaulted passages, by 
rambling and unclean lanes. At the end, a narrow 



THE MOANING BY THE WALL 115 



paved alley is come upon, on the east side of which is 
a colossal wall sixty feet high. This is one of the outer 
sustaining walls of the Temple area, and is as near to the 
site of the ancient Temple as the Jew allows himself to 
go. It is a wall like a cliff, sheer and immense. It 
is as the bastion of an unassailable fortress. The lower 
courses are made up of gigantic blocks of ancient stone 
which were laid down, the learned say, in the days 
of Herod. They are stones, brown by reason of great 
age, in the crannies of which many a green shrub and 
many an adventurous weed are growing. 

At the foot of the appalling wall a number of Jews, 
both men and women, are huddled. They mutter mel- 
ancholy sentences from greasy books ; they pray ; they 
weep ; they kiss the wall ; they touch the wall with 
their hands as if there were comfort in the feel of it ; 
they rest their heads against it as a watcher leans against 
a closed door. Most of them are old, while all seem 
poor. They look dejected, tired, and despairing. There 
is one very ancient ragged Jew in the crowd who is the 
embodiment of hopelessness. His face is white and 
lined, his eyes seem sightless. He wears a flapping 
felt hat, beneath which straggle two thready side-locks. 
He is clad in a long black coat and vague leg-endings. 
His lamentation has degenerated into a mere peevish 
whine. He neither protests nor petitions. He merely 
moans as would one who had beaten upon a shut portal 
for fifty years. Near him is a younger man, a Spanish 
Jew, well clad, tall, and upright, with a face of great 
refinement — the face of a visionary. He speaks his 

litany with insistence and assurance, and prays as one 

1 2 



n6 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



who knows that his prayer at least is heard. It is he, 
and such as he, who keep alive the spark of hope among 
the grey and scattered ashes. 

It is an extraordinary and impressive picture. 
This remnant of a once mighty and arrogant people 
clamouring outside the wall of their lost Temple ; this 
persistent prayer droned out for wellnigh two thousand 
years : the wall so terrific, so impassive, so impossible, 
while those who beat upon it, seeking to come in, are 
so feeble and so forlorn. As well might one conceive 
the picture of a solitary man kneeling at the foot of a 
mountain praying that it may be moved ! What an 
astounding realisation it offers of a faith that would 
make a precipice to crumble, of a hope that would 
cleave a barrier of stone, of a longing that can survive 
the denial of centuries ! 

The passer-by may ask, in the words of the Book of 
Nehemiah, ' What do these feeble Jews ? Will they 
revive the stones out of the heaps of the rubbish ? ' And 
the answer is that among the heaps of rubbish, among 
the piled-up ruins of long ages, among the wreckage 
left by war, earthquake, and fire there are some who 
can still see the glow of light on the stones that marks 
the spot where the Ark of the Lord had stood. 

The grandeur and pathos of the scene are enhanced 
rather than diminished by the crowd of tourists who 
gather here each Friday afternoon, who giggle and 
chaff and punctuate the solemn litany by the clicking 
of their kodaks. 



XIV 



BETHLEHEM 

Some five and a half miles south of Jerusalem stands the 

town of Bethlehem, the first halting-place on the long 

trail that leads into the land of Egypt. There is between 

Jerusalem and Bethlehem a road which those who are 

reckless in the use of terms call a carriage road and 

pronounce to be good. It is in strict fact, a slouching 

and unsteady road, raw and rough, which is indicated 

by a haze of hot dust in the summer and by a tract of 

furrowed mud in the rains. Imagination has endowed 

this way with picturesqueness. Is it not a path of 

consummate peace, wending through ' a land which the 

Lord thy God careth for/ across green hills and by 

sheltering valleys drowsy with the babble of streams ? 

In reality it traverses a poor, bare, and colourless 

country, unfriendly and unlovable, where the painfully 

cultivated fields are littered with stones, where rough 

walls take the place of hedges, and where the land is 

treeless but for a few mendicant olives. Indeed, a chilled 

upland in Derbyshire, where stone walls and a thorn 

bush may be the only features in the landscape, is to 

be preferred to the country towards Bethlehem. 

117 



n8 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 

It is hard to find in the Holy Land any of that charm 
of scenery which certain writers will persist in bestowing 
upon it. ' Those who describe Palestine as beautiful,' 
says one who knew the country well, ' must have either 
a very inaccurate notion of what constitutes beauty of 
scenery, or must have viewed the country through 
a highly-coloured medium.' 

Some four miles along the road, and by the border 
of it, is the Tomb of Rachel. This is a modern Moslem 
sanctuary made of white washed plaster freckled with the 
scribblings of devout pilgrims. It is a crude building, a 
mere rustic's memorial. Apparently from early Christian 
days tradition has associated this spot with the burial- 
place of the chosen wife of Jacob. It will be remembered 
that Rachel, ' the beautiful and well favoured,' died by 
the roadside after she had given birth to her second son, 
and that ' as her soul was in departing ' she called his 
name Benoni, but his father called him Benjamin. 
Jacob's account of her dying is pathetically simple. He 
says : ' And as for me, when I came from Padan, Rachel 
died by me in the land of Canaan in the way when yet 
there was but a little way to come into Ephrath : and 
I buried her there in the way of Ephrath ; the same 
is Bethlehem.' And now the pillar which Jacob set 
up upon her grave is replaced by this poor besmirched 
mausoleum, and, sadder still, men learned in the Holy 
writings decline to accept the site as authentic, affirming 
that ' no identification is at present possible.' 1 

Still nearer to the town is David's Well, represented 
at the present moment by three rock-hewn cisterns filled 

1 The Temple Dictionary of the Bible. (London. 1910.) 



BETHLEHEM 



119 



with fetid water, which same is described in the guide- 
books as being ' highly dangerous.' There is every 
reason to suppose that these tanks occupy the site of 
the ' well ' which was beloved by David. David, when 
roving the country at the head of a band of freebooters, 
found himself, on a certain occasion, very hard pressed. 
The weather was hot — for it was the harvest-time — 
and things were going ill. The chronicler writes : ' And 
David longed, and said, Oh that one would give me drink 
of the water of the well of Beth-lehem, which is by the 
gate ! ' To him, as a boy, the spring would be very 
familiar, for he was the son of a well-to-do farmer in 
the town and must have stopped at the well many a 
time when coming back to Bethlehem with his sheep. 
Unfortunately, on the occasion of David's utterance, 
Bethlehem was held by the Philistines, but three of 
the band — hardy ruffians no doubt — overheard their 
chief's cry and at once quietly determined to give him 
what he longed for. 

It was a dangerous, if not a desperate, venture ; but 
the three took the hazard. They cut their way through 
the enemy's lines ; they reached the well, and they 
brought a pitcher of water back in triumph to the camp. 
One can imagine with what pride they would place it 
before their captain — water from the familiar spring which 
was by the gate. A bloody raid it may have been, and 
all of the three may have been stiff with wounds, but 
they had got the pitcher with hardly a drop from it spilt. 
David's action when he took the pitcher and when he 
looked into the eyes of the three gallant lads, who had 
cheerfully risked their lives to give him one moment's 



120 



THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



pleasure, must have brought a lump into the throats of 
all who stood by. He would not drink the water, much 
as he longed for it, but emptied the pitcher on to the 
ground and, with dry lips, said that since the draught 
had been obtained at the jeopardy of three loyal lives, 
to drink it would be to drink the blood of his bravest 
friends. Is there any nobler picture than this of the 
spirit of comradeship among men ? 

Round about Bethlehem the country is broken up into 
a number of low hills of bleak limestone, on the ridge of 
one of which the town is placed. It, therefore, stands 
high so that it can be seen from afar off. It is a modern 
town unredeemably ugly and built of stone dug from the 
gaunt flanks of the hill it crowns. The slopes of this ridge 
are hacked into a multitude of step-like terraces for vines, 
supported by interminable dull walls. It is a drab city 
of drab houses on a drab ridge, as monotonous in colour 
and as cheerless looking as a pile of dry bones. No doubt 
when the flowers are in bloom and when the leaves are on 
the vines the place is less ashen, but it would need a garden 
of the Hesperides to make this city of dry bones live. 
Such is Bethlehem, the dreary town with its foreground 
of stones and its background of limestone hills. Viewing 
the place from a distance one cannot suppose that there 
are any children in it or that its cold-blooded walls can 
ever re-echo to the laughter of women or the singing 
of men. 

The one thing of interest in the town is the birth- 
place of Christ. The Church of the Nativity is of great 
size, and there is little reason to doubt that it covers the 
spot where stood, according to the traditions of the 



BETHLEHEM 



121 



time, the famous village inn. The actual place in which 
it is claimed that Christ was born is a cave — a quite 
impossible cave. As has already been said (p. 109) 
many of the sacred places in Palestine are located 
in caves. The devout are asked to believe that the 
mother of the Virgin Mary lived in a cave, that the 
Virgin herself was born in a cave, that the Annun- 
ciation took place in a cave, and that the angels appeared 
to the shepherds in a cave. The reason of this predilec- 
tion for caves is not far to seek. The dwelling-house in 
the East — especially the dwelling-house of the poor — 
is and ever has been a fragile and transitory structure. 
It is not to be supposed that in olden times it was 
less unstable than the crumbling fabric which makes up 
the house of the village of to-day. Indeed, a writer 
in the ' Temple Dictionary ' says : ' In the time of 
our Lord the external appearance of the houses of 
the middle and lower classes must have been much 
what it is at present.' It was only by constant 
propping up of ceilings and daubing of walls that 
the house was prevented from falling into decay. 
The flat roof, as soon as it became cracked in the heat, 
was ready to let through the rains of the winter, and 
when the walls of rubble and earth became waterlogged 
the days of the house were numbered. Within a few 
years the neglected home would become a heap of ruins. 
Now it was not until some three hundred years after 
the death of Christ that any serious attempt was made 
to discover the sites that were associated with the 
events of His life. Long before the lapse of that time 
the deserted village would have become a vague heap 



122 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



of amorphous earth, the Carpenter's cottage at Nazareth 
would have crumbled into dust, and the village inn 
at Bethlehem, with its stables and its mangers, after 
three centuries of wind and rain, of moth and rust, 
of thieves that break in and of marauders that search 
for fuel, would have vanished as completely as if it had 
never been. If there chanced to be a cave in or near 
the obliterated town it would be, and would remain, 
the one ancient object in the place, the subject of 
the old men's gossip and of the young men's invention ; 
and if it should happen that some religious recluse had 
established his home in the cavern it may be assumed that 
he would not fail to make it fit some detail of the great 
drama that was ever in his mind. Thus, as says Dean 
Stanley, ' the moment that the religion of Palestine 
fell into the hands of Europeans, it is hardly too much 
to say, that, as far as sacred traditions are concerned, 
it became a religion of caves.' 

The Church of the Nativity is a great basilica erected 
by the Emperor Constantine in a.d. 330. It seems to 
have been extensively remodelled some two hundred 
years later and has been, like other churches, the subject 
of many destructive ' restorations.' Still, there remains 
a building of such extreme antiquity that it can claim to 
be 'in all probability the most ancient monument of 
Christian architecture in the world.' 1 No church looks 
less like a church externally than does this basilica of the 
Nativity. Indeed, the unguided, if wandering through 
Bethlehem in search of the church, might pass the 
building many a time without a suspicion that it was 

1 Stanley, loc. cit, 



BETHLEHEM 



123 



the place they sought. Around a paved square that 
might be a parade-ground is a heavy mass of buildings 
made up of frowning walls, high up on the face of which 
are a few narrow windows heavily barred. One looks 
in vain for a spire or a dome, for a porch or a cloister, 
for a window which would be fitting to a chancel 
or an aisle. On the parapet of the wall is a bell, 
but it looks like an alarm-bell. The place indeed 
would inevitably be mistaken for either a fortress or 
a prison. 

In one angle of this mass of masonry there is, on the 
level of the ground, a hole in the wall, an entry so small 
and low that one has to stoop to pass through it. This 
is the door of the church, although it has all the appear- 
ance of the sally-port in a stronghold. The reason of the 
narrow door is fear of the Moslems ; while the reason for 
the church that is outwardly a citadel is the fact that, 
year after year, it has waited breathlessly for attacks 
from the hosts of the unbeliever. It has not waited 
in vain, but, by virtue of the high wall and the narrow 
door, it has held its own. It must be some two hundred 
years ago since the Turks stripped the lead off the roof 
to make the same into bullets. It was a nefarious act, 
for the lead in question had been given by King 
Edward IV of England for the repairing of the church, 
at which time Philip of Burgundy provided the pine 
wood for the like good object. 

Within the walls and behind the narrow door there 
has been much fighting among the representatives 
of the Church of Christ : the result, at the moment, 
being a sullen truce which leaves the building in the 



124 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 

joint occupation of the Greeks, the Latins, and the 
Armenians. As at any moment the ministers of God 
may be seized with a passion to murder their brethren 
in the faith, a Turkish soldier, fully armed, stands on 
duty in the little chapel which professes to be the actual 
place where Christ was born. This is a picture to 
contemplate — a Mohammedan soldier keeping watch 
over the spot where the shepherds found ' the babe 
lying in a manger.' 

The basilica is an immense square chamber, bare as 
an empty ballroom. It consists of a nave separated from 
two aisles by a double row of pillars, forty in number. 
These columns are monoliths of yellow-brown stone and 
are surmounted by Corinthian capitals. From the ceiling 
of the nave hang lamps in elongated red bags which look 
like immense gouttes of blood about to drop from the 
roof. On the walls are faint remains of the wondrous 
mosaics upon which the artists of Manuel Comnenos 
laboured in the latter half of the twelfth century. It is 
still possible to see something of the beautiful arcades 
they designed, in which were curtained altars, something 
of the wondrous plants they dreamed about bearing 
incredible flowers and fantastic leaves and of the little 
company of seven ghostly people who are all that are 
left on the walls of the ancestors of Christ. The east end 
of the basilica, including the transept and the choir, is 
shut off from the rest of the building by a modern wall 
erected by the Greeks, who have converted the portion 
thus isolated into a chapel. This chapel is very full of 
ornament. Its elaborately decorated screen, its carved 
seats, its crosses, its lamps, its candlesticks, its hanging 



BETHLEHEM 



125 



balls, its pictures, and its images give it the air of an 
overcrowded curiosity shop. 

From the chapel a flight of narrow steps descend 
into the Grotto of the Nativity. In this underground 
chamber, buried as it is a fathom or more deep and 
accessible only by stairs, it is claimed that Christ was 
born. It is impossible to conceive of the place as a 
stable, or to imagine that under any condition it could 
ever have been put to that use. The Bible, moreover, 
makes no mention of a cave, while, on the other hand , 
it states that it was in a house that the wise men found 
the young Child with Mary His mother. 

The cave is about the size and shape of a railway 
corridor carriage, being thirty-three feet long by eleven 
feet wide and ten feet in height. It has a cove roof, is 
lined with stiff painted canvas and is furnished as 
a chapel. It is lit only with lamps, which are said 
to be thirty-two in number. The actual place of the 
Nativity is a recess just above the level of the ground, 
precisely like a modern fire place without a grate. 
Lamps hang in the recess, while on the hearth is a 
metal star of some magnitude which was purchased 
in Vienna in 1852 to replace one that was stolen. 
In a small cell leading out of the main grotto is a ledge 
upon which the manger, according to the authority of 
the church, once rested. The little place has of course 
its altar. The manger itself is said to be lodged in the 
church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. 

A complex subterranean passage, connected with the 
Crypt of the Nativity, contains a curious and miscellaneous 
collection of sacred oddments, such, for example, as the 



126 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



Chapel of the Innocents where sundry children were slain 
by the order of Herod, the spot where Joseph received 
the command of the Angel to flee into Egypt, the tomb of 
St. Jerome, the cave in which he lived, and the graves of 
certain of his pupils both male and female. 

I had the fortune to witness a service in this Arabian 
Night Chapel of the Nativity. I saw the ceremony from 
the stair — the solitary spectator. A number of Franciscan 
monks, tonsured and sandalled and clad in brown frocks, 
entered the chapel and at once knelt down facing the 
niche where the star was laid. They seemed to have crept 
out of the bowels of the earth, for they were as unreal- 
looking as a company of gnomes. They hummed a dreamy 
litany in tones which rose and fell with the rhythm 
of a wave. The voices, coming out of the cave, sounded 
hollow and unnatural, while the utterances were those 
rather of an incantation than a chant. I felt that I was 
witnessing the ritual of a ghostly sabbath, and that if I 
stirred the whole strange assembly would vanish. Seen 
through the doorway at the foot of the stair this little 
lamp-lit company of kneeling men, in the attitude of the 
adoring Magi of an old altar-piece, in their 1 medieval 
dress, with their tapers and missals, formed a scene out of 
the days of the Middle Ages. One seemed to be looking 
upon an ancient picture, the figures of which had come 
to life. The light which lit the faces of the monks, 
throwing their features into sharp relief, came from 
unseen lamps, and, as viewed from the stair, might have 
poured through an opening in the cave from the setting 
sun of five centuries ago. 



XV 



THE COUNTRY OF RUTH 

An excellent view of the surrounding country can be 
obtained from a point on the ridge just beyond the 
outskirts of Bethlehem. At one's feet an open undu- 
lating land stretches away to the heights of Moab, a 
land almost bare of trees, much partitioned by stone 
walls, and devoid of any fascination except the one of 
wide expanse. The near hills are sage green in colour, 
shaded with brown ; the lower fields are a brighter 
green, being alive with budding corn ; while on the 
uplands are far-extending pastures for sheep. 

The cornfields were the scene of the picturesque idyll 
of Boaz and Ruth, while the grass-lands are the fields of 
the shepherds where the angel came with ' good tidings of 
great joy ' to the keepers of the sheep. These fields are 
probably little changed since ' the days when the judges 
ruled ' and when the loyal-hearted Ruth came out to 
glean. It was down this very slope that Boaz, ' the 
mighty man of wealth/ must have strolled to his lands 
in the cool of the evening. He would carry a staff and 
be followed by a servant. On reaching the cornfields 

he would greet the reapers in courtly fashion with the 

127 



128 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



words ' The Lord be with you,' while they, lifting up 
their faces streaming with toil, would reply heartily 
' The Lord bless thee.' Then the great man's eyes 
would fall upon the figure of a solitary woman glean- 
ing, and would note that she was a stranger, and that 
she was small, womanly, and very graceful. 

In the valley below the ridge is a little drab village 
in a thicket of olive trees. But for a muster of these 
trees here and there the whole expanse would be very 
bleak. Some way across the low hills is the great rift 
in the earth which marks the valley of the Jordan, 
while on the horizon are the mountains of Moab which 
stand up against the sky like a long lilac-blue bank as 
level as a wall. 

Looking across this featureless country, so poverty- 
stricken, so miserly, and so threadbare, one cannot but 
ask: Is this the ' glorious land,' the land 'that floweth 
with milk and honey,' ' the good land, the land of brooks 
of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys 
and hills ' ? Is this the land that is sung about in the 
' Song of songs, which is Solomon's ' ? Is there a single spot 
in the whole wide country to which the conceit would 
apply — ' thine eyes are like the fishpools in Heshbon, by 
the gate of Bath-rabbim ' ? Is this the 'delightsome 
land ' ' where there is no want of anything that is in 
the earth ' ? 

None will doubt that there was a time when the 
country was luxuriant and flourishing and worthy of the 
brave language the writers of old have bestowed upon it. 
A later time came, however, when the land was to fall 
upon evil days. The Bible is eloquent as to the griev- 



THE COUNTRY OF RUTH 



ousness of the coming disaster and is aglow with imagin- 
ation when the woes that are to be are foretold. The 
country, as the old script words it, is the country of the 
scourge, the pit, and the snare. Its cities shall be smitten 
and its towns deserted ; strangers shall devour the land ; 
its inhabitants shall melt away ; the highways shall 
be waste ; the wayfaring man shall cease. The earth 
shall reel to and fro, the sky shall be darkened, the 
heavens rent, and the end, when it comes, shall be ' as 
a bitter day.' 

In fulfilment of this lurid forecast the Promised 
Land has been for centuries ravaged by war and torn 
by internal dissensions. It has been plundered and laid 
waste. Its inhabitants have been blotted out, and, as 
a final calamity, the country, sick unto death, has fallen 
into the baneful care of Turkey. Forests have been 
recklessly cut down and woods rooted up. The rainfall 
has in consequence diminished so that the land has 
dried up. Vineyard terraces have fallen into ruin and 
water channels into decay. Obsolete processes of culti- 
vation have been maintained, the people have been 
harassed and oppressed until there is little joy left 
in them. Progress has become unthinkable and enter- 
prise a crime. The methods of the Turk might have 
been foreshadowed in these words from the Book of the 
Chronicles of the Kings of Israel : ' Ye shall . . . fell every 
good tree, and mar every good piece of land with stones.' 
One can imagine that over the dumb, lethargic country, 
with its bare pastures and empty sheep-folds, there 
comes this cry from out of the mighty past : ' Thy 
shepherds slumber, O king of Assyria.' 



XVI 



THE PLAIN OF JERICHO 

Some little way beyond Jerusalem, over the Mount of 
Olives and on the Jericho road, lies Bethany. It was a 
village that figured often in the life of Christ — a lovable 
place of quiet memories. It was the home of Martha and 
Mary, of that Martha who, like the neurotic woman of 
to-day, was troubled about many things. It was the 
scene of the raising of Lazarus. Placed as it is, on the 
spur of Olivet, it might well have been a village of great 
charm in the days which made its name for ever memor- 
able. It is now represented by a few wretched hovels, 
grey, filthy, and ruinous — a slum detached from a city, a 
pitiless man-hating spot. The houses piled up on the 
hill would seem to be as empty as a heap of skulls, their 
staring windows sightless as the eye sockets of the dead. 
The inhabitants are reputed to be the dirtiest and most 
importunate in Palestine. This reputation is maintained. 
The hamlet stands, in all the effrontery of shameless 
squalor, at the head of a dejected valley. Being on the 
verge of the desert of Judea the view southward from 
poor Bethany is very grievous. 

Accompanied by a yapping crowd of children, who 

130 



THE PLAIN OF JERICHO 131 

are extravagantly unclean, the visitor is taken to the 
house of Martha and Mary. This is a mere penance 
observed by pilgrims and others, for the spurious building 
may as well be called the house of Ananias and Sapphira. 
He is finally invited by a dozen begrimed hands to 
enter the tomb of Lazarus, this sepulchre being the joy 
of Bethany. The children smile through their dirt as 
they reiterate the invitation, for, seemingly, they know 
that the burying-place of Martha's brother has changed 
its site from time to time. It is possible that at this 
point the tourist rebels, for there is little object in 
descending into a foul street cellar for the purpose of 
being shown a grave in which Lazarus did not lie. 

The distance from Jerusalem to Jericho is measured, 
not by miles, but by hours. It is gauged by endurance 
rather than by mere yards. People speak of the passage 
as a journey of four hours. This standard of time is 
based upon the capabilities of two shrivelled horses when 
dragging a Jerusalem cab between the places named. 
The cab is professedly a victoria and might have been 
used in a technical school to demonstrate to a class 
every form and variety of repair known in the coach- 
builder's art. The survival of the fittest decides which 
cab shall be raised to the sublime honour of the Jericho 
road. The horses who are responsible for the equation 
of time exhibit no signs of life until the moment for 
starting arrives. Up to that point they have the 
appearance of zoological specimens which have been 
parsimoniously stuffed and whose internal framework 
is giving way. They seem also to be moth-eaten. 

As to our driver it was difficult to judge of either 

K 2 



132 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



the character of the journey or of the man by his dress. 
He wore loose, blue Turkish trousers, completed by very 
florid socks which were, no doubt, a bequest from a 
colour-blind tourist. On his feet were shining galoshes. 
His body was covered by a tweed greatcoat of English 
make, the cloth of which was so lacking in places 
that the lining was apparent. It looked almost like 
a relief map, where an attempt had been made to show 
the distinctions of land and sea by the use of acids. 
The coat, being possessed of no buttons, was attached 
to the body by means of a bright orange scarf wrapped 
round the waist. The mysterious man's head, neck, 
and shoulders were enveloped in a black woollen 
shawl beneath which a crimson tarboosh was visible. 
On the way to Jericho he seemed to be bored even to 
nausea, and to be anxious to avoid looking at either 
the road or the adjacent country as if he disliked 
them so. He appeared to be limp with fatigue, to 
take part in the journey under protest, and to share 
with the horses some deeper feeling than a mere lack of 
enthusiasm. I began to think that there was something 
in the malediction ' Oh, go to Jericho ! ' 

The actual road is, for a Turkish road, good, or at 
least to a great extent. In places it degenerates into 
a ploughed track or breaks out boldly into a glissade of 
slippery rock. There are passages where the traveller 
thinks it safer to walk. There are intervals of rest 
when repairs in the harness or in the carriage are being 
made. I noticed, in this connection, that our driver 
could accomplish most things by means of telegraph 
wire and string. 



THE PLAIN OF JERICHO 



As to the country traversed it is a weary desert, grey 
with melancholy, bare to pitifulness, and silent as a 
land of the dead. It is not a desert of level sand that 
stretches away to the horizon like a vast unrippled sea. 
In such a plain there is at least the solemn impression of 
immensity, the sense of man as a minute speck creeping 
across a sphere revolving through space. This desert of 
Judea is a mean country, a waste of innumerable hills 
that come rolling in from the unseen like the waves on a 
shallow beach. They are hills that are dead. Their bones, 
in the form of grey rocks, show through the tattered cover- 
ing of threadbare grass and wiry scrub. The whole place 
is treeless. With the exception of a few goats and a goat- 
herd there is not a sign of life by the wayside ; with 
the exception of two humble khans there is [not a sign of 
a dwelling. We would seem to pass ' through a land of 
deserts and of pits, through a land of drought, and of 
the shadow of death, through a land that no man passed, 
through, and where no man dwelt.' 

Over and over again the road labours upwards to 
the ridge of a hill and then flounders down into a 
valley, long and winding and as dismal as a ditch. The 
monotony of the way is unspeakable. It is a road upon 
which no progress is made, for after an hour of toiling 
the traveller believes that he has come to the spot he 
passed an hour ago. On reaching a height, with a 
hope that the journey's end may be in view, there are 
only more hills to be seen, while in the valleys the 
track turns so often that the traveller despairs of ever 
getting out. This must be some such road as Christian 
toiled along in Bunyan's ' Pilgrim's Progress.' Here is 



134 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 

the Hill of Mocking, and here the Valley of Deceit, while 
at this parting of paths may have stood Mr. Facing-both- 
ways. As we went on our way we met a few donkeys 
loaded with panniers, a few dignified and hooded figures 
mounted on horses, a woman on a donkey, and a shep- 
herd with his sheep. The goats of the country are 
mostly away from the road, appearing as black dots on 
the pallid slope. The small round clumps of scrub 
made a curious effect, for, being of a bluish-grey tint, 
they looked like puffs of smoke on the scorched hillside. 

Some half-way down to Jericho we reached a small 
caravanserai called the Inn of the Good Samaritan. 
Its position serves well to illustrate the ancient and 
familiar parable. While we were there a carriage drew 
up with a party from Jerusalem, burdened with the 
presence of a man of fluent knowledge. Bunyan would 
have named him ' Mr. Knowing-all-things.' He told his 
friends, with compassionate condescension, that the 
building was not the actual inn to which the Samari- 
tan brought the man who had fallen among thieves, 
but that it was built on the site of that tavern. Having 
delivered himself of this precious item of research he 
called for a bottle of pale ale. 

The inn is on high ground and in a shallow pass. 
From an eminence near by is a wonderful view across 
this lamentable desert of a thousand hills. There is 
not even a bush to be seen and not a sign of a habita- 
tion. The far-away heights are lilac in colour, the 
nearer are a bluish grey, while those at hand have the 
tint of mouldy hay. The hills upon the horizon may 
be in the Garden of Eden, but those at one's feet are 



THE ROAD TO JERICHO 




DOUBTING CASTLE, ON THE ROAD TO JERICHO 



THE PLAIN OF JERICHO 135 



so cold, bleached, and sickly that assuredly the sap of 
the world of all green things has been drained out 
of them. 

On a neighbouring mound are the ruins of an 
ancient castle which, once upon a time, commanded 
the pass through this sorry country. It might very 
well be that Doubting Castle of Bunyan's dream, where 
dwelt the giant Despair, but a guide-book says that 
it is almost certainly the Tour Rouge built by the 
Templars. It is a castle of rugged stone with, on 
the least steep side of it, a moat cut out of the 
solid rock. There are still three vaulted chambers 
left where men-at-arms must have yawned forth their 
melancholy at the end of every weary day, and, with 
closed eyes, have recalled the English villages where they 
had rollicked as boys, the water meadows, the garden 
of hollyhocks, the little church and the cawing rooks, 
and the woods dappled with primroses. There is a 
passage, too, in the castle leading to a winding stair 
that mounts to the look-out. Many a burly Templar 
will have edged his way up these stairs to sicken his 
heart for the hundredth time by the contemplation of 
these mocking hills. The stronghold, on the occasion 
of our visit, was garrisoned by two donkeys and six 
frivolous kids. In the hall, which was probably the 
guard-room, was an abject man into whose very bones 
the misery of the place had evidently eaten. He sat 
on a stone, with bowed head — a picture of Job when 
the worst fell upon him. 

Beyond the castle of Giant Despair the scenery 
changes. It ceases to be merely monotonous and 



136 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



becomes aggressive and fierce. The road tumbles along 
by the brink of a hideous chasm with rust-brown sides. 
In the gulley at the bottom of the abyss is a thread of 
a brook, half hidden by rushes. In the opinion of 
some this is the Valley of Achor, and, as the dungeon- 
like ravine opens upon the Plain of Jordan, it may 
well be called, in the words of Hosea, ' a door of hope.' 

There are caves in the walls of this awful valley, in 
many of which hermits live. From the road these 
caves look like the holes the sand martin makes in a 
bank. Clinging also to the face of the cliff is a white 
building which seems to have oozed out of a fissure in 
the rock and to have congealed into a drop of masonry. 
It is the Monastery of St. George, a sanctuary of the 
Greek Church and a diseased product of religion. It is 
probably the most ridiculously placed building in the 
world, as well as the most useless. It must have been 
the outcome of a disordered mind, for it is just such 
an impossible fabric, suspended over an abyss, as is met 
with in the landscapes of delirium. 

While we were looking at the monastery from the 
hill on the other side of the chasm, a monk came out 
of the building and stood on a small platform or balcony 
that projected from the wall. Had he taken another 
step he would have dropped out of sight into the crevice 
which lay fathoms deep below. His coming was sur- 
prising, for the place, although evidently a habitation, 
could not be associated with the idea of living men. 
He seemed to gaze with interest in our direction — a 
being as forlorn as a solitary man on a derelict ship 
watching a liner steam out of sight. To all appearance 



THE PLAIN OF JERICHO 137 



he belonged so little to this busy world of to-day that 
he might have been a creature of another planet which 
had drifted so near to the earth as to be separated only 
by the narrow gap that prevented the two spheres from 
touching. It would have been quite appropriate if the 
impossible house, the cliff, and the great strange land 
beyond it had drifted away and passed out of sight, 
taking with it the creature who had been near enough 
to the earth to have a glimpse of its inhabitants. 

To some of the hermits' holes a faint path — a mere 
hazardous ledge — could be seen to lead ; others would 
appear to be unapproachable. It is said that in ancient 
days these caves were hiding-places for men ; if so 
the terror from which they fled must have been too 
dreadful to conceive. No mere fear of death could have 
driven men to take refuge in the cracks of this pitiless 
ravine. These black holes on the face of the cliff serve 
to express the extremest panic of the pursued as well 
as the relentlessness of the pursuer, for it is said 
' Though they dig into hell, thence shall mine hand 
take them.' As for the crazy hermits and the inhuman 
monks, these words of Isaiah may very well be put into 
their gibbering mouths : ' We grope for the wall like the 
blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes : we stumble at 
noonday as in the night ; we are in desolate places as 
dead men.' 

At last the Plain of Jericho comes into view. It is 
very flat, very wide, very featureless. On the other side 
of the plain are the Mountains of Moab. They form a 
sheer rampart of bare rock, heavily scored from peak 
to base. When the sun falls full upon it this great 



138 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 

mountain palisade is wonderful to see. Its cliffs and 
slopes may then be of as bright a pink as the Malmaison 
carnation, or of as faint a blue and grey as a wreath 
of smoke from a wood fire, while every ridge and seam, 
every gorge and buttress, is marked out sharply by 
shadows of pure blue. One knows that these hills are 
of massive stone, but at a distance they would seem 
to be fashioned out of luminous clouds, and it is thus 
that they form so vivid a contrast with the solid plain — 
which is dull drab whenever it is not dull brown, except 
at one place where a bight of the Dead Sea is inlaid 
like a plaque of silver. Of the Jordan, or of the course 
that it follows, there is not the least indication. 

The descent to the plain is steep. That part of the 
flat which reaches to the foot of the hills is wan, barren, 
and stony. The first vegetation come upon takes the 
form of a hungry rabble of thorn bushes, bleached of 
colour and singularly unfriendly. The Bible speaks of 
' the prickling briar : the grieving thorn.' No better 
title can be given to this frontier of the desert of hills 
than The Country of the Grieving Thorn. 

The new Jericho is a pleasant modern village, pleasant 
mainly by contrast, for although it is both disordered 
and dirty it is very green. It is a drowsy oasis of red 
roofs and white walls, with an unexpected chapel and a 
surprising mosque, with many palms and cypresses, with 
gardens of tropical luxuriance, and with flowers enough 
to outweigh many wretched hovels and some display of 
corrugated iron. Here are orange bushes and banana 
palms, lanes like those of Devon, vines and oleanders, 
bamboos and pepper trees, grass without stint, and 



THE PLAIN OF JERICHO 139 



hedges of the most profligate green. With such solace 
it matters little if on one side rise mountains of stone, 
while on the other side lies a plain the deadness of 
which is only relieved by blocks and pillars of arid clay. 

The climate of Jericho is enervating, and in the 
summer intolerably hot. The circumstances under 
which King David gave the advice, ' tarry at Jericho 
until your beards be grown,' were peculiar and must 
not be considered as of general application, for a worse 
residence for developing youth it would be hard to find. 
The whole place is unkempt, savagely luxuriant, reck- 
less, and spendthrift. It is as if Nature had planned 
here a wild orgy in the midst of a sterile desert. 

The ancient Jericho — the city of the old Testament — 
lies to the west of the modern town with its up-to-date 
hotels. It stands at the foot of the hills by the side of 
a generous spring. This spring, known as the Sultan's 
Spring, is represented by a cheery little river which 
comes rushing and romping out of the hill like a stream 
of noisy children bursting out of school. It is a marvel- 
lous spectacle, for it bubbles forth with such freshness 
that it might come from a glacier, while in fact it issues 
from a mountain of hot limestone as unlikely to give 
forth water as a heap of ashes. The stream falls into 
a clear pool flashing with fish, then tumbles headlong 
over a mill-wheel, and finally flows across the country 
in a hundred channels which keep green the gardens 
of the plain. 

The makers of tradition call this pool Elisha's Spring, 
and maintain that these were the waters that he ' healed ' 
by means of a new cruse full of salt. If this be so then 



140 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



the hill at the back must have been the one he was 
climbing when the children of Jericho — as careless in 
manners then as they are now — called after him ' Go up, 
thou bald head.' It is probable that modern sympathy 
will be entirely with the children, for the love of 
' mocking ' is ever strong in them, and it may be sus- 
pected that the appearance of the dour prophet lent 
itself to ridicule. No doubt the children were afraid of 
him when they met him in the streets, but when he was 
well up the hillside the temptation to ' mock ' must 
have been irresistible. The boys would begin calling 
him names first and then the girls would join in. It 
is a pity that ' he turned back, and looked on them, and 
cursed them,' for the panic produced by the she-bears, 
as the terrified little people fled back shrieking to the 
city gate, must have been very dreadful. It would have 
been quite enough if he had merely turned back and 
looked on them. 

It was up this very hill that the two spies must have 
crept in the dark after they had escaped from Jericho. 
They got away from the city by means of a rope that 
dropped from Rahab's window into the moat at the 
foot of the city wall. It was in these very mountains 
that they hid themselves for three days, while the 
town guard, after having carefully shut the gate, were 
fatuously pursuing them towards the ford of the Jordan. 
From their cave on the hill the spies, lolling at ease, 
must have seen the perspiring soldiers stumbling over 
the plain, now rushing forwards and now creeping on 
tiptoe with uplifted swords towards a bush, then sur- 
rounding the bush and finally clubbing it with frightful 



THE PLAIN OF JERICHO 141 



blows. They must have laughed till they were tired 
to see the gesticulations of the befogged pursuers, the 
pointing this way and that, the occasional crawling 
on the ground, and the constant mopping of puzzled 
brows. The spies must have seen them also hobble 
back to the city in the evening, limp with fatigue, and 
may have imagined the kind of lies they were telling, 
with such graphic gestures, to the folk who met them 
at the gate. 

It is just by the fountain that ancient Jericho was 
situated. The site is most commanding. It can be well 
understood that ' the situation of this city is pleasant,' for 
with its lavish supply of water it must have sparkled 
with fountains and pools and have been surrounded by 
a very Garden of God, together with fields full of corn 
and hemp, and meadows green with luscious pasture. 
It was a walled city of some size, a royal city, a military 
garrison that held the pass to the uplands of Judea. 
From a strategical point of view its position was of the 
strongest. It commanded the plain, it held the road 
westward, it had behind it an inaccessible rock, and 
yet it was up the pass at the back of the town that 
Joshua and his army ascended on their way to Ai. 

A good deal of the ancient city has been excavated 
by an Austrian society. Those who have carried out 
the work have had need to dig deep. The foundations 
and walls of very many houses have been laid bare 
as well as much of the city wall. The result is a series 
of little squares like a collection of cattle-pens. The city 
wall itself is of considerable substance and of no mean 
height. It is built of sun-baked bricks very like those 



142 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 

which can still be seen in the humbler houses of the 
present-day town. It is happily within the power of 
anyone to indicate the spot on the wall where the two 
spies were let down by a cord. It is possible to stand 
at the foot of the wall and, looking up at the parapet, 
to imagine the site of Rahab's house, ' for her house 
was upon the town wall,' and even to picture the little 
window that looked towards the river, in which the spies 
advised Rahab to bind the line of scarlet thread which 
was to prove the saving of her life. 

From any one of the great mounds that mark the 
site of the old city there is a view across the plain, and 
beyond the Jordan to the hills of the land of Moab. 
One of these mountains must be Mount Nebo, and one 
of these peaks ' the top of Pisgah, that is over against 
Jericho.' It was from this height that Moses, at the 
end of his long journeying, saw not only ' the plain of 
the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees,' but also 
' all the land of Judah unto the utmost sea.' It is 
somewhere in the valley among these hills that the 
great leader of men lies buried ; ' but no man knoweth 
of his sepulchre unto this day.' The burying-place 
is worthy of the man, for the mountains are glorious, 
their fascination is inexpressible, so that in all the world 
there can be no grander monument to the dead. 

The plain that stretches before Jericho was the 
scene of one of those momentous events in the history 
of the world which have mightily affected the destinies 
of nations. This event was the passage of the Israel- 
ites over the Jordan and thence into the land of 
Canaan under the leadership of Joshua. 



THE PLAIN OF JERICHO 143 

Standing on the spot where the regal city of Jericho 
once rose it is possible to conceive the astounding picture 
this migration of men must have presented. The whole 
plain was in alarm. The gates of Jericho were shut, 
so that ' none went out, and none came in.' The streets 
were still, for a great terror had fallen upon the people 
of the town. There hung over the place the hush of 
impending disaster. There was something moving to- 
wards the city that neither walls nor arms could resist. 
Those who stood, pale and breathless, on the ramparts 
could see an enormous horde of men moving slowly 
down the slopes of the mountains of Moab. They came 
along steadily and silently like a lava stream. The 
dark mass passed over the Jordan, as if no river had 
a place there, and then began to pour across the plain 
in the direction of the awe-stricken city. It was an 
army such as had never before been seen ; an army 
of forty thousand men ' prepared for war,' followed 
by the women and the children, the old people, the 
cattle, and the sheep. 

The plain was black with men, and with such men as 
Jericho knew not of. For no less than forty years these 
people had been wandering homeless in the wilderness. 
They were clad in rough garments, or in the tatters of 
clothing that had been carried with them out of Egypt 
two score years before. There were few of the fighting 
men that had not been born on the trail. There were 
few who could remember any home but the desert. 
None except the old men and the old women were 
able to recall the land from which they came. They 
were a wild, unkempt, terrific folk, an army in rags, an 



144 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 

army of stern, solemn-faced men who marched gravely 
and in silence. Nothing broke the stillness of the 
procession but the awful, heart-throttling tramp of 
over forty thousand feet. 

The people of Jericho, who looked from the wall, could 
see that this fearsome column creeping towards them was 
headed by men who were carrying a mysterious chest 
overlaid with gold, and that they bore it upon staves 
passed through four rings of gold, two rings on one 
side and two on the other. This was the Ark of the 
Covenant of the Lord of all the earth. Before the 
gold chest went seven priests in strange attire who 
held in their hands trumpets made of rams' horns. 
It was not until the outskirts of the trembling city 
were reached that the quiet of the advancing host 
was broken, for it was then that the seven blew upon 
their trumpets ; and as the sound rose shrilly in the van 
of the great battalion the people of the city were made 
dumb with horror. 

Of all sieges the siege of Jericho is one of the most 
haunting to read about. There was no rush of storm- 
ing parties, no clatter of scaling ladders, no crash of 
battering rams, nothing but the spectacle of forty 
thousand grim men advancing in silence across a plain, 
in the wake of a golden chest. 

But although the folk of the doomed town were 
already so ' faint ' from alarm that there did not 
'remain any more courage in any man,' there was 
something yet to come which was more dreadful still. 
The ghastly army made no approach to the gates, but, 
for seven never-ending days of sickening suspense, that 



THE PLAIN OF JERICHO 145 



awful company kept up an ominous march around the 
town, tramping ever in a silence that was terrible to bear 
and that was rent only by the blast of the seven horns. 
It was the mystery and solemnity of the procession 
that had so dread an effect, together with a horror 
of the unknown something that lay within the golden 
chest. 

At last, at a given signal, there arose from the 
beleaguering crowd a shout like that of the bursting 
of a dam, a shout yelled forth from forty thousand 
throats, a sound that rattled upon the rocks like 
thunder, that stilled every beast and bird in the plain, 
and that brought the walls of the city to the ground ; 
for it was terror that made good the siege of Jericho. 



t 



XVII 



THE JORDAN AND THE DEAD SEA 

The interest that is associated with the Plain of Jericho 

is not wholly dependent upon either the unwonted aspect 

of the place or upon its strange and tragic story, for 

above all these things the spot is one of the strange places 

of the earth. Strange in this — that it is the lowest stretch 

of land on the surface of the world. The Jordan and 

the Dead Sea lie in a long hollow in the earth's crust, in 

a depression that, if viewed from the planet Mars, could 

be conceived to resemble a dent on a golf ball. Thus it 

is that the town of Jericho is placed more than twelve 

hundred feet below the level of the open sea. Thus it is 

that Jericho, of all human habitations, is the town which 

is farthest from Heaven ; while those who live there in 

the summer need not to be reminded that it is nearest 

to the red-hot centre of the earth. 

The road to the Jordan is described in the language 

of the country as one and a half hours long. This may be 

interpreted as about six miles. Estimates of distance 

must vary in this particular spot because there is no 

road to the Jordan. There is a flat between the village 

and the stream, the way across which is optional, being 

146 



THE JORDAN AND THE DEAD SEA 147 



influenced by the depth of the dust in the summer, by 
the disposition of the mud in the rains, and by the 
caprice of the driver at other times. The undesigned 
track has neither been improved nor seriously disturbed 
since the time when Joshua passed that way. The 
course followed by the cab of the tourist is necessarily 
erratic and may as well be regarded as identical with 
that taken by the deluded town guard of Jericho when 
they were pursuing the two spies towards the river. 

In crossing the plain it will be noticed that it presents 
a greater variety of colour than could be imagined when 
it was viewed from the western hills. The soil, such as 
it is, is cinnamon-brown, but here and there in the 
distance are drifts of dun-yellow or of oyster-shell grey. 
The place is covered with scrub which has as little life 
in it as a covering of lichen. Curious to say, there are 
a number of camels, with their calves, ' grazing ' in this 
plain. What they find to live on in this pasture of 
Tantalus is known only to themselves. As the vege- 
tation is as crisp as a cinder, and is of any colour but 
green, the waste may be a camels' purgatory such as 
Dante would have imagined, or it may be regarded 
as a pastoral scene conceived in the spirit of sarcasm. 
If the camel were an animal capable of appreciating 
humour, its feeding-ground may be compared to the 
table of papier mach6 chickens and hams upon which 
people feast iKKOusly at a pantomime. 

A solitary tree in the plain, said to be a terebinth 
tree, is pointed out as marking the site of Gilgal, but, 
owing to the bumpiness of the road, the tree was difficult 
to define, for, as the cab rocked to and fro, it expanded 

L 2 



148 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



hazily into many trees. There stands also a Greek 
monastery in the flat, which presents a picturesque 
appearance. It is a house of rest for Russian pilgrims 
on their way to the bathing-place of the Jordan. 

Before the river is reached there is a curious country 
to pass through, made up of hillocks and oddly shaped 
masses of whitish clay. A drearier riverside could 
hardly be conceived except in the neighbourhood of 
cement works. As certain of these clay-heaps are square 
in shape, or are moulded by the rain into the outlines 
of walls, pillars, or tombs, the whole district looks like 
the ruin of a cemetery of giants. All along by the side 
of the still invisible stream is a thicket of bush made 
up of poplars, tamarisks, and willows, struggling out of 
an untidy undergrowth. 

The sacred river reveals itself in a sudden and 
dramatic fashion, for there is nothing, even up to the 
last, to suggest its whereabouts. The visitor, alert 
with curiosity, sees a muddy stream, the opaque waters 
of which are a sordid brown, running between banks 
of slippery mud of the same tint. The stream is swift 
and silent, and at the bathing-place is about the width 
of the Cam at Cambridge. This particular spot on the 
Jordan is stated by the imaginative to be the place of 
the baptism of Christ, to be the scene of the legend of 
St. Christopher, and to be the ford where the host of 
Israel crossed under Joshua to the taking of Jericho. 
On the other side of the river is a little wood which is 
pleasant to look upon by reason of its eager vitality, for 
the stream itself is sullen and indifferent, with as little 
spirituality about it as there is about a gulley in a mud 



/ 



THE JORDAN AND THE DEAD SEA 149 



flat. It would seem to be part of the ritual of the visit 
to dip a finger into the stream, in order that the traveller 
may say that he has washed in the Jordan, and, further- 
more, to fill a beer bottle from the sacred flood to carry 
away with him. 

From the Jordan the journey is continued, in the 
same casual fashion as regards roads, to the Dead Sea. 
The land about the Dead Sea is a level of brown mud 
precisely like the floor of a wide estuary after the tide has 
left it. The mud where very dry is cracked, while where 
very wet it is a bog. It is exclusively mud, for there is 
not even a stone to be seen. The only evidence of life 
on the fringe of the sea is represented by some sickly 
and anaemic bushes the colour of cigar ash, which suggest 
gorse bushes which have been bleached and dried as are 
specimens prepared for museums. Mud and pallid bush, 
indeed, compose the scenery of the shore of the Dead 
Sea. It is a landscape that is not unpleasant except 
in its severity and its meagre composition. There is 
an air of exclusiveness about it, for every storm of rain 
will wash away, time and again, all trace of footmarks, 
horse-hoofs, and carriage wheels, leaving the surface as 
smooth as in the days of the primeval world. Thus 
it is that the impression is forced upon the mind that 
the shore is untrodden by man and that the visitor 
of to-day is the first visitor since time began. This 
aspect of loneliness, this effacing of all memory of 
living things, this apparent desire to be cut off from 
the world, and to obliterate all signs of approach, consti- 
tute the only sombre features of the Dead Sea coast. 

As for the sea itself it is a beautiful mountain lake 



150 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



stretching away to the horizon for many a glittering 
mile, a lake whose waters are a glorious emerald green, 
suggesting cool, unfathomable depths. The wind ripples 
it, so that tiny waves, clear as crystal, break upon its 
beach of bright pebbles. It is a merry and kindly sea, 
for none can drown in its waters. There is nothing 
horrible, desolate, or mysterious about it. Its shore 
is infinitely more charming than the harsh, stony 
shore of the Sea of Galilee, as seen at Tiberias. The 
awful accounts of the lake and of its evil moods have 
been long dispelled. It was said that any bird essaying 
to cross it fell dead upon its surface, that it smoked 
with noisome vapours, and that a sulphurous smell hung 
about its banks. The only thing horrid about the lake 
is its name. It has been called the Dead Sea, and on 
this account it has been considered right to endow it 
with all the gloom appropriate to the scenery of death. 
It is only a little more salt than the Great Salt Lake 
in Utah, but no descriptions of that water leave the 
impression that it is a sea of utter misery and deso- 
lation. As a matter of detail the ocean contains some 
3*5 per cent, of salts ; the Dead Sea can boast of 26 
per cent., and is therefore eight times Salter than the 
sea ; while the Great Salt Lake was found in 1850 to 
yield 22 per cent, of saline matters. 

As is well known, the Dead Sea has no outlet. It 
loses its water by evaporation, while its level varies 
from time to time to the extent of twenty-one inches — 
a rise and fall due to the heat of the season, on the one 
hand, and the amount of water poured in by the Jordan 
on the other. Standing on the shore of this imprisoned 



THE JORDAN AND THE DEAD SEA 151 



lake it will be seen that it lies in a trough of stone. 
Looking southwards it sparkles away until it meets the 
sky at the horizon, but on either side there are steep 
and prodigious hills. At the time of our visit the sun, 
falling upon the Mountains of Moab which form the 
eastern wall of the lake, had coloured the rock a deep 
brick-red, so that the precipice was aglow as if lit by a 
furnace fire. The whole hill was incandescent, so that 
it would not have seemed wonderful if the water had 
hissed and steamed as it touched the foot of the cliff. 
The western wall, formed by the Mountains of Judea, 
was shrouded in purple shadow, as if the heat were 
fading out of the stone. It thus comes to pass that 
the Dead Sea may appear to lie in the hollow of an 
enormous crucible of red-hot rock where its waters are 
being evaporated by some unseen fire. 

The dull red colour which is met with among the 
hills of this unparalleled valley serves to make vivid 
an episode which is described in the Book of the Kings. 
There Was an occasion when three kings of the country 
were banded together for the purpose of making a raid 
upon the people of Moab. The Moabites prepared to 
meet the attack with some eagerness. They were 
confident of victory, although it was fated that before 
the sun went down their entire force should be cut 
to pieces. The narrative runs as follows : The Moabites 
' rose up early in the morning, and the sun shone upon 
the water, and the Moabites saw the water on the other 
side as red as blood : and they said, This is blood : the 
kings are surely slain, now therefore, Moab, to the spoil.' 
The picture is a graphic one to any who have witnessed 



152 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



the fierce glamour of red in the land. The camp of the 
three kings, we may imagine, lay in the shadows of the 
plain, rich and unsuspecting. The hills are aglow, the 
water is crimson. Suddenly down from the heights, by 
a hundred paths, pours the wild army of the hillmen 
yelling out their battle-cry, 'On! Moab, to the spoil!' 
It seemed an easy onslaught ; but the light of blood 
on the water dazzled their eyes, and it was this mirage 
that lured them to their deaths. 

According to a custom which has been binding upon 
tourists, time out of mind, I bathed in the sea. The 
experience was curious. The water was warm and very 
clear, but it felt oily or soapy and frothed much when 
agitated. The lake deepens quickly so that it is un- 
necessary to swim out far. Floating is the natural 
attitude of all bodies of reasonable weight that drop into 
the lake. Some ingenious person has discovered that a 
fresh egg will float in this accommodating sea with one- 
third of its volume above the water. I found it possible 
both to dive and to swim under water. There was no 
difficulty also in making oneself sink. The real trouble 
was with swimming on the chest, for in that attitude 
both feet came out of the water at each stroke, so that 
progress was wellnigh impossible. Swimming on the side 
was easier, for then one foot was always in the water and 
therefore efficient. I am under the impression that if 
an unconscious person were dropped into the Dead Sea 
the head would sink while the rest of the body would 
remain floating on the surface, but I am aware that there 
are difficulties in the way of verifying this impression. 
The taste of the water was merely salt and by no means 



THE JORDAN AND THE DEAD SEA 153 



so nauseous as are certain medicinal waters greedily 
consumed by the public. The strong saline solution 
certainly made one's eyes smart severely, while for 
some time after I had left the lake there was a sensa- 
tion as if a mustard plaster had been applied to the 
shaven part of one's face. On the whole, bathing in 
the Dead Sea will not make the reasonable dissatisfied 
with the water of the English Channel on a summer's 
day. On stepping out of the water I caught a glimpse, 
for the first time, of Mount Hermon covered with snow, 
while the Mount of Olives stood up so clearly as to 
delude one with the belief that it was near at hand. 

On that part of the beach where tourists most do 
congregate there is a crude shanty where what is 
reputed to be refreshment can be obtained. Here were 
gathered three men and a boat. Near the water are 
two wooden posts which were said to be the remains 
of a bathing hut. They represented the failure of some 
hesitating ambition to found a spa, and possibly later 
a casino, on these exclusive shores. 

One of the most beautiful experiences at Jericho was 
the watching of the dawn break over the mountains 
of Moab. The vault of heaven was full of stars. The 
great line of hills stood up as a mass of black against 
the faint grey light of the east. The whole fabric of 
rock, with its level summit — level for miles — looked 
like a colossal bier covered with a black pall. It was 
reared to a terrific height against the quickening sky. 
As the light grew its colour changed from grey to 
yellow, from yellow to rose pink, until it blazed out 
into all the glories of the dawn. The slopes of the 



154 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 

range took form, ' the precious things of the lasting 
hills ' began to be revealed, the pall melted away, the 
plain rose from the abyss, the sea appeared as a sheet 
of dull lead, the stars faded — and it was day. It 
would have been in the presence of some such spectacle 
as this that Amos must have written of Him ' that 
maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the 
shadow of death into the morning.' 



XVIII 



ROUND ABOUT HAIFA 

It is customary to proceed from Jerusalem to Haifa 
by road, passing on the way through the land of Samaria 
and by the town of Shechem ; but at the time that we 
contemplated this journey the road was declared to 
be impassable by reason of the rains. It was necessary, 
therefore, to return to Jaffa and to proceed thence to 
Haifa by boat. The voyage occupies some five hours, 
in which time the steamer passes from Dan to Zebulon, 
by way of the country of Manasseh. In later times 
the ship would be described as following the coast of 
Samaria from one frontier to the other. This same 
coast is the fringe of the Plain of Sharon and the sea 
border of the land of the Philistines. It is a low coast, 
monotonous and featureless, as well as almost bare 
of vegetation. A cliff the colour of firebrick, broken 
here and there by a slope of tawny sand, a background 
of lilac-tinted hills, and a foreground of indigo-blue sea, 
complete the landscape. 

About half-way between the two ports there is to be 
seen by the water's edge a grey spectre of a town. It 
is a spectre visible only to those who watch for it, for 

155 



156 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



to some the place might seem to be little more than 
a low ridge of white and grey rocks. It is found on a 
closer view to be made up of miscellaneous ruins of 
some pretence, humbled by the company of coarse huts 
and a few modern dwellings of pitiable meanness. This 
place, that is little more than a grey shadow on the 
beach, is the imperial city of Csesarea, the once proud 
seaport, the city built by Herod the Great — Csesarea 
the superb, that was at one period the most important 
city in the whole of Palestine. It is now a mere wraith, 
a formless drift of stones and dust tenanted by slum 
dwellers, and, as Dean Stanley says, the most desolate 
site in the Holy Land. 

The harbour, once full of brilliant galleys and masts 
fluttering with flags, is nearly silted up ; the mole, at 
one time crowded by porters and seamen and piled up 
with bales of goods, is barely traceable ; while the vast 
amphitheatre, which could accommodate twenty thousand 
spectators, is indicated only by faint lines. Those who 
have pored over these ruins, as a scribe over fragments 
of faded script, tell of high towers and imperious 
gates, of a great cathedral, of huge bastions, and 
deep moats, for Csesarea was a fortress that once 
withstood a seven-years siege. It is hard to appreciate 
that this poverty-begrimed settlement, where a book 
would be a curiosity, was once a seat of learning in 
whose halls Origen taught. It is harder still to con- 
ceive that somewhere in this desolation of dirt stood 
that imperial court of justice where Paul ' answered 
for himself ' before Festus and Agrippa, and where he 
made the famous speech in the defence of his life. 



ROUND ABOUT HAIFA 157 



Here, according to the legend — in this very spot 
which could now produce probably no vessel more artistic 
than a kerosine oil tin — was found the Holy Grail, that 
cup of green crystal with six sides, out of which Christ 
drank at the Last Supper. The wondrous story of the 
Grail varies in the telling, for it closes not with the dread 
adventures of either Sir Percivale or Sir Galahad. Vary 
as it may it is difficult to imagine that this ill-smelling 
fisher town stands for that ' blessed land of Aromat ' 
from which 

' After the day of darkness, when the dead 
Went wandering o'er Moriah ' 

the good Joseph of Arimathea brought the cup to 
Glastonbury where the thorn blossoms at Christmas 
time. 

After all, I think the most lamentable part of the 
Csesarea of to-day is the little harbour. It comes well 
into view from the steamer's deck, the poor, desolate, 
forgotten harbour wherein for ever ' shall go no galley 
with oars, neither shall gallant ships pass thereby.' 

Nearer to Haifa is another ruined town — the town of 
Athlit. It forms a picturesque and romantic pile of ruins, 
interspersed with the miserable dwellings of a colony 
of Arabs. Raised aloft on a projecting spur of rock 
between two bays it seems to spring direct from the 
Mediterranean, an imposing fortress with high walls, 
pierced by many loopholes and commanded by a mas- 
sive tower. Even from a passing ship it can be seen 
that the stronghold still contains the remnants of 
buildings of some magnificence. This sea castle was 



158 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



built by the Knights Templars in 1218 and was finally 
deserted by them in 1291, so that although over six 
hundred years have elapsed since the garrison mustered 
in the courtyard for the last roll-call, although the 
mighty walls have been battered by wind and sea and 
shaken by earthquakes, and although the illicit stone 
dealer has made of the place a quarry, yet the ever- 
impregnable fortress is even now formidable to look 
upon. Those who describe the ruins speak of them 
as ' second to none throughout Western Palestine in 
massiveness and sublimity,' 1 and certainly no ruins in 
the Holy Land can exceed them in picturesqueness. 

It is said that Athlit was the very last stronghold 
held by the Crusaders, and that it was here that the 
Holy War, after it had been maintained for nearly two 
hundred years, came to an end. Ever since Peter the 
Hermit had carried his red message like a firebrand 
through Europe men had hurried from town and village, 
from palace and hut, to fight under the Cross, to open 
the way to Calvary, to save from desecration the land 
that had been trodden by the feet of Christ. It was 
a war made lamentable by a holocaust of human lives, 
made glorious by the most self-sacrificing devotion, made 
horrible by massacre and brutality, and pitiable by 
foolishness and mad fanaticism. 

The ninth and last Crusade was nearing its end. The 
gallant French King, who was at the head of sixty 
thousand men, had died on the way. Edward of 
England, finding further fighting with a shadow hope- 
less, had sailed for home. Acre had been taken from 

1 Macmillan's Palestine and Syria. (London. 1908.) 



ROUND ABOUT HAIFA 



159 



the Christians ; Tyre and Jaffa had fallen ; so that the 
only place left in the Holy Land for the foot of the 
soldier of Christ was the castle of Athlit. The fortress 
was besieged, and by such a force that any long 
resistance was hopeless. Thus it was that in the great 
Banqueting Hall (the ruins of which are still to be seen) 
the Templars met to celebrate mass for the last time. 
Then, when the sun was set, they filed in silence out of the 
water-gate and down the steps to the boats. The ships 
were already waiting in the little harbour, so that when 
the Moslems entered the castle the next morning it was 
empty : the last band of Christian soldiers had passed 
away out of sight, and the great Crusade was ended. 

The ridge of Mount Carmel ends by the brink of the 
sea in a green and comfortable headland. On the north 
side of this promontory is the smooth-shored Bay of 
Acre, a bay so even of curve and with so level a beach 
that the sea appears to be encompassed by a sickle of 
polished sand. On the far corner of this gulf and under 
the shelter of Mount Carmel lies the town of Haifa. 
There is no harbour in the place, but the high land 
protects the anchorage from winds which come out of 
the south and the east. By the time that the steamer 
dropped her anchor at the foot of Mount Carmel a 
strong north-west breeze was blowing. The captain 
had mentioned the fact that every winter he expected 
to encounter about three gales along the Syrian coast. 
This was one of the three. Later on we had the 
misfortune to experience the second of the series. 

Although the promontory affords some shelter from 
the west there was a moderate sea running. The 



i6o THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



arrangements for landing at Haifa fall very short of per- 
fection, while the boatmen lack the efficiency and verve 
which mark their brethren at Jaffa. The benevolent 
protection of Mount Carmel has not fostered hardihood, 
it would seem, so that when the wind runs strong from the 
north those who ' follow the sea ' are apt to do so by 
leaning over a sheltered wall and watching the waves. In 
spite of the fact that we reached the ' Mount of God ' at 
5.30 p.m. we did not land until nine at night. The same 
long galleys are employed as at Jaffa, but those who 
labour at the oars are spiritless and dejected and may 
possibly be the descendants of the mariners who, when 
St. Paul's ship was in trouble, despondently ' cast four 
anchors out of the stern, and wished for the day.' 

The night was the very blackest I can call to mind. 
The first boat took away into the gloom a large native 
family with much eccentric luggage and five children. 
What with the darkness, the staggering of the ship, the 
howling of the wind, the lashing of the sea, and the 
yelling of neurotic boatmen, this disembarkation was 
a sufficiently close reproduction of a shipwreck at the 
moment of the order ' Women and children first.' 

The women were handed over the side in the form 
of shapeless and perverse bundles, full of protest. They 
dropped out of sight into the murk. The children, being 
unwilling to be lowered into an apparently bottom- 
less pit full of horrid sounds, clung to the ship, inch by 
inch, screaming and shrieking the while, as if Jonah's 
whale awaited them below with open mouth. In due 
course we reached a boat, or at least a boat reached us 
by rising out of the unseen. The moment it became 



ROUND ABOUT HAIFA 161 

visible we were pushed into it with scant notice. Then 
came an intolerably long row towards some lights, such 
as would be produced by four candles placed wide 
apart, the same representing the city of Haifa. So 
profoundly dark was it that we might have been 
rowing on the Styx, while the man smelling of mould 
who asked us for baksheesh might have been Charon 
himself. 

After a while the rowing ceased, the oars were 
unshipped without apparent reason, and I then found, 
by the sense of touch, that we were alongside a rough 
wall. Whether it was three feet high or thirty it was 
impossible to tell owing to the blackness of the night. 
My wife and the dragoman disappeared vertically into 
the air, having been drawn heavenwards by some 
invisible agency. I then felt myself gripped about 
the shoulders and arms and lifted out of the boat, to 
be deposited on my knees on some sharp stones. I 
believe this translation was the work of man, but 
as I saw no living creature, as the silence was 
unbroken, and as no one asked for baksheesh, this 
impression cannot be confirmed. 

I rose to my feet and proceeded to walk in the only 
direction that had any attraction — viz. away from the 
boat. I stumbled over a series of malignant obstacles, 
and finally, having tripped many times, fell heavily 
forwards. I alighted upon a large and soft sub- 
stance, which proved on examination to be the body 
of a fellow tourist. Before I could ask if it was well 
with him he exclaimed : ' I have found out where we 
are : we are on a railroad.' It would have been less 

M 



162 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



unexpected if he had announced that we were in the 
cave of Adullam or in a street in Appii Forum. He 
asked me to feel the rail upon which he was lying. 
I did so, but found it in no way different from those 
to be seen at Clapham Junction. 

Continuing our progress in the same direction we 
came into more or less violent contact with every article 
employed in the equipment of a railway. It was as 
instructive as a rough kind of kindergarten for the 
blind. We tripped over ' points,' fell upon shunting 
levers, came up against trucks as against invisible 
walls, and rested for a while on a heap of clinkers. 
Proceeding more boldly we simultaneously fell down a 
bank and rolled on to what proved to be a firm stretch 
of wet sand. Upon this unexpected shore waves were 
breaking, and as we wished no further communion with 
the sea we turned towards what we believed to be the 
Holy Land. After a few steps I once more collided 
with a large soft substance which proved this time to 
be a live horse. I proceeded to feel my way along the 
animal to the tail. Here I discovered a cab attached, 
and near by my wife and the dragoman, who had 
arrived here along a recognised path and had assumed 
that I was following. 

An examination of the spot on the following day 
revealed a rough railway pier, on the deep water side 
of which we had landed. Instead of following the pier 
longitudinally, as is customary when walking on piers, 
we had crossed it from side to side. 

Having got into the cab we set out to drive through 
a mysterious black town, the extreme vileness of the 



ROUND ABOUT HAIFA 163 

road giving us the assurance that we were once more 
on Turkish soil. The town was such a one as 
Gustave Dore loved to depict. It appeared to be 
deserted, as if stricken by the plague. A little light 
came here and there from under a door or through the 
cracks of a shutter. We rattled along a narrow lane, 
across such a square as cloaked bravos would haunt, 
and under an alarming arch which might have led 
to a dungeon. The houses seemed fantastic in shape 
and as full of horrible surmise as the city of a night- 
mare. I thought it was the most dramatic-looking place 
I had ever seen. There were appearances of loopholed 
walls, of barred windows with people watching behind, 
of sinister entries, of blank houses in which dread 
crimes had been committed, and of frightful gutters 
with shadows in them like the shapes of men. Daylight 
displayed next morning a modern town of the most 
commonplace aspect and of the dullest respectability, 
in which any hint of romance was dispelled by that 
severe crudeness of detail which marks the unaspiring 
Mediterranean town. It was inconceivable that the 
City of Dreadful Night could ever have been evolved 
from this city of insipid day. 

We found at the hotel at Haifa a party of three 
derelict men who were consumed by excusable melan- 
choly. They had come from Constantinople to Beyrout, 
intending to proceed to Damascus by train, but, 
finding the railway to that town blocked with snow, 
they proposed to go at once to the goal of their 
pilgrimage — Jerusalem. With this object they took 
ship from Beyrout to Jaffa, but owing to the violence 

M 2 



164 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



of the sea they could not land at this town and so were 
carried on to Port Said. Having exhausted the limited 
joys of Port Said they again essayed to go to Jaffa, 
but were taken past this jade of a place for the second 
time — the sea being still implacable — and were deposited 
once more at Beyrout, a place for which they had already 
acquired a marked distaste. They started once again 
from Beyrout to Jaffa, but, encountering by the way the 
same storm that had troubled us, were assured that 
landing at Jaffa would be impossible, so they were 
put ashore, with much muttering, at Haifa. They 
spoke boldly of going to Jaffa by road — a feat of no 
mean daring in the winter — and sought, in the while, 
relief from their woe by constantly repeating certain 
pleasantries about the land that floweth with milk 
and honey. They also gave all within earshot to 
understand that this was their last visit to Palestine. 

The German quarter at Haifa is the most pleasant 
part of the town, being admirably laid out, and full 
of well-built houses with many a charming garden. 
Since the establishment of the German Colony, Haifa 
has made rapid and substantial advance, being now 
a nourishing seaport with 15,000 inhabitants, together 
with commerce of some magnitude. 

To those who sojourn at Haifa the Holy Mountain is 
ever present, so that it is possible to appreciate at leisure 
' the excellency of Carmel.' The mountain takes the form 
of a ridge which runs inland for some fifteen miles, form- 
ing a great dividing wall between the Plain of Sharon 
on the one side and the Plains of Acre and Esdraelon or 
Jezreel on the other. The ' Carmel by the Sea ' forms a 



ROUND ABOUT HAIFA 



165 



headland 560 feet in height, but inland the mountain 
grows in stature as it advances, terminating opposite to 
the low hills of Samaria in a bold cliff which is 1800 feet 
above the level of the Mediterranean. The slopes of 
Carmel are green with trees and bushes, among which 
are many oaks and almond trees. It is therefore in 
agreeable contrast with the hills about Jerusalem and 
the Jordan. 

On the summit of the sea headland is the famous 
Carmelite monastery. The monks of the Order appear to 
have been established here since about a.d. 1200, their 
tenancy having been interrupted on occasion, during the 
subsequent seven centuries, by the violence of unbelievers. 
The present monastery dates, in its main parts, from 
1828. The visitor to this retreat is offered a choice of 
delights : he can either see, for the sum of six piastres, 
the cave in which Elijah is reputed to have dwelt, or he 
can purchase for a larger outlay a bottle of liqueur 
manufactured by the monks and called ' Eau de Melisse.' 
If these curiously combined attractions avail nothing 
there is at least the view which commands the coast 
from Tyre to Csesarea and the hinterland from Mount 
Hermon to the heights beyond the Jordan. This ex- 
tensive panorama takes in a very considerable part 
of Palestine, affording thereby a conception of the 
comparative smallness of the country. 

Carmel stands out conspicuously in the history of 
the Holy Land, being the scene of many events recorded 
in the Old Testament. It was in Carmel that that 
astute woman Abigail met David, and it was under the 
shadow of the hill that he married her. She was, it may 



166 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



be remembered, ' a woman of good understanding, and 
of a beautiful countenance.' She was also a woman 
of fluent and voluminous speech, with a great deal to 
say for herself. Her first husband was a source of 
trouble to her, being not only churlish in his manner, 
but also ' evil in his doings.' Abigail, although appar- 
ently a torrential talker, may be commended for her 
terse and restrained description of her spouse, since 
in her harangue to David she summed up the unfor- 
tunate man in the following brief words : ' Nabal is 
his name, and folly is with him.' 



XIX 



ACRE 

The place of greatest interest near Haifa is Acre, which 
stands at the far point of the bay, at a distance, accord- 
ing to Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela, of three parasangs. 
The road from Haifa to Acre is the best in Palestine, 
for it is a road not made by man. The traveller drives 
along the beach, round the curve of the bay, from the 
one town to the other. The shore is of level sand, 
wet with the sea, and so firm that the carriage wheels 
make scarcely a mark on it. The journey is one of 
great delight. When we passed along that way the 
sea, freshened by the winter wind, appeared to be 
effervescent. Beyond the beach were the dunes of wind- 
rumpled sand, a golden country of many dips and dells 
and of many mimic thickets of reedy grass. Far away 
beyond the dunes was a wide semicircle of hills which 
shut out the world. Stalking along the beach was a 
caravan of camels with sundry horsemen and sack-laden 
donkeys. About this picturesque procession fluttered a 
number of gulls who had been disturbed in their wading. 
At some little distance from Haifa we drove across 

a stream on the point of entering the sea. It was a 

167 



i68 



THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



singularly modest stream that seemed only anxious to 
efface itself and to steal into the ocean unobserved. It 
crept across the sand like a person treading noiselessly. 
Many a traveller driving to Acre may fail to observe that 
he had crossed a river by the way. This very unobtru- 
sive stream is no other than the famous River Kishon — 
' that ancient river, the river Kishon,' that witnessed the 
defeat of Sisera's host and was reddened with the blood 
of the slaughtered prophets of Baal. 

Nearer to Acre another stream is crossed — the River 
Belus. Some legend exists that with the sand by the 
banks of this stream the Phoenicians first learned to 
make glass. This shadowy report caused Sir John 
Maundeville — the knight who came from St. Albans in 
England — to break out into circumstantial lying. He 
says that near to the river ' is the foss of Memnon, 
which is all round ; and it is one hundred cubits broad, 
and all full of gravel, shining bright, of which men 
make fair and clear glasses. Men come from far, by 
water with ships, and by lands with carts, to fetch of 
that gravel ; and though ever so much be taken away 
thereof one day, on the morrow it is as full again as 
ever it was. And that is a great wonder. And there is 
always great wind in that foss, that continually stirs the 
gravel and makes it troubled ; and if any man put therein 
any kind of metal, it turns to glass, and the glass made 
of that gravel, if it be thrown back into the gravel, turns 
to gravel as it was at first ; and, therefore, some men 
say that it is whirlpool of the gravelly sea.' 

Acre, as seen from the bay, stands boldly out into 
the sea, like a far-reaching rock whose extreme point 



ACRE 



i6g 



is lost in water fathoms deep. In the place of rock 
is a long dark wall rising out of the sea, a wall heavily 
fortified, with here and there a postern and at one spot 
a cavern-like sea gate. Behind are piled-up houses, 
brown, blue, and white, with red roofs or yellow cupolas 
and sun-shutters of bright green, for Acre stands full in 
the glare of the day. There are besides alert minarets, 
a stolid dome, a tower, and certain high buildings which 
rise above the rest as if to get a glimpse of the sea. 
In its setting of jade-green water and maise-yellow sand, 
Acre from afar is an enchanting town of many colours. 
The entrance to the town is through the solitary land 
gate by which alone it is possible to go in or to come out. 
Acre from its very earliest days has been a place of 
war. It has had neither leisure nor inclination for 
the arts of peace. It has been a fortress, never a home. 
It has been a town of men. The sounds that would be 
familiar to Acre, above the roar of the sea, have been the 
clatter of arrows, the hail of catapult stones, the pound- 
ing of battering rams, the roar of cannon, the rattle of 
guns. It seems to have been first besieged on a worthy 
scale in a.d. 638, and to have been last bombarded in 
1840. During the intervening twelve hundred years it 
was many times taken and retaken, was burned on 
occasion, starved on occasion, and on occasion laid 
silent by the plague. It was the chief landing-place of 
the Crusaders, and was for long the principal Christian 
stronghold in the Holy Land. 

It is still a wholly masculine town. There are 
now women and children in the place, but they have 
done little as yet to soften the harsh features of this 



170 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



war-battered fortress. Acre is a place of immense walls, 
too massive to ever fall into decay. There is a great 
moat on the land side of the town that the rubbish of 
centuries will never fill up. There are fragments of 
towers, vaulted chambers, narrow passages roofed with 
stone, gigantic storehouses, magazines fashioned of 
heavy masonry, and streets that are mere alley-ways 
between barracks and military works. Around all 
are the great ramparts, and although these are of 
comparatively modern date there are yet in evidence 
walls of all ages, among which it is not difficult to find 
traces of bastions and redoubts built and held by the 
Crusaders. More than that, some remains are to be 
seen of the Crusaders' Church. This city of alarms is 
still a military station. The soldiers who compose the 
garrison are as ruinous as the fortifications. They 
are shabby and slovenly, ill-clad and ill-shod, so as 
to appear like an army of tramps holding a beggared 
citadel. The guide-books say that there are few 
antiquities in Acre. This may be expected, inasmuch 
as twelve hundred years of bombardment and assault 
are not calculated to assist in the preservation of 
ancient monuments. 

From Acre can be seen the romantic promontory 
known as the Ladder of Tyre, beyond which headland 
lie Tyre and Sidon, both of which are sunk now into a 
state of hebetude and obscurity. We were not able to 
visit Tyre, but the photographs of the place show it to 
be the humblest of little towns. Yet there was a time 
when Tyre was ' the crowning city, whose merchants 
are princes, whose traffickers are the honourable of 



ACRE 



171 



the earth.' Tyre was the mistress of the seas, and 
Ezekiel speaks in fine words of her ships whose 
timbers were of pine from Senir, whose masts were of 
cedar wood, whose oars were of oak from Bashan, and 
whose sails were made of ' fine linen with broidered 
work from Egypt ' in colours of blue and purple. What 
the prophet foretold of Tyre has come to pass : her 
walls have been destroyed, her towers have been broken 
down ; she has become ' like the top of a rock : . . . 
a place to spread nets upon.' 



XX 



THE ROAD TO NAZARETH 

The distance from Haifa to Nazareth is said to be 

twenty-four miles, the road to be fairly good, and the 

time of the journey to be four to five hours. We found 

the miles phenomenally long, the journey to occupy six 

hours, and the road to be fairly bad. For some eight 

miles the way lies close to the foot of the Carmel range, 

skirting the level plain of Acre. It is a pleasant country 

enough, for the plain is extensively cultivated and the 

slopes ol the hill are green with trees and bush. We 

passed through olive groves, by thickets of mimosa, 

through plantations of mulberry trees, and by hedges 

of prickly pear. We also came upon abject villages, 

incredible in the display of dirt, and upon frowsy 

women drawing water at a well. The Eastern woman 

at the well, as depicted by artists in regular succession 

for many centuries past, is a picturesque creature, but 

when the woman of Samaria is dejected and unkempt, 

when she is decked in a cheap Manchester skirt which 

is both wet and dirty, and when her pitcher is a 

kerosene oil tin, she is not pleasant to look upon. 

There was, furthermore, by the wayside a shepherd 

172 



THE ROAD TO NAZARETH 



clad in a Joseph's coat of many colours. It was in 
reality a cloak, patched with rags of every hue under 
the sun — yellow, red, blue, brown, and white. I am 
under the impression that the man was something of 
a poseur and that he combined the tending of sheep with 
a remunerative mumming for the benefit of tourists. He 
was a little overdressed for the part and was evidently 
willing to be photographed for a consideration. It is 
probable that many scores of albums, devoted to ' snap- 
shots from the Holy Land,' contain a portrait of this 
yokel in fancy dress, above the title of ' Joseph.' 

In due course the Kishon is crossed and we draw 
near to the circle of wooded hills which encloses the 
flat towards the east. About this spot a certain green 
kopje is pointed out which is believed to be the site of 
Harosheth of the Gentiles, a stronghold held by Sisera, 
the captain of Jabin's army. Here, in this quiet stretch 
of country, the great battle between Sisera and Barak 
was fought. It was about Harosheth and the Kishon 
River that Sisera marshalled his people, a savage host of 
filibusters who for twenty years had • mightily oppressed 
the children of Israel.' In front of this array of 
buccaneers and cattle-raiders were drawn up, in a 
solid line, Sisera's ' nine hundred chariots of iron.' 
It must have been a stirring picture, since the ad- 
vancing army, led by Barak the son of Abinoam out 
of Kadesh-Naphtali, was composed of no less than ten 
thousand warriors. 

There was a strange feature about Barak's army. 
In the centre of the host of ten thousand determined 
men, who were making the last stand for hearth and 



174 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



home, marched a solitary woman. Unarmed and un- 
attended she was yet mistress of this throng of spears. 
Her eyes were ablaze, her voice rang far, and the words 
that she uttered moved the hearts of the vast company 
' as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind.' 
This was Deborah. She walked with head erect as if 
she were Bellona, the Goddess of War. As she walked 
she sang. Her spirit thrilled the veins of the fighting 
men who advanced to the music of her step. She gave 
strength to the arm that hurled the javelin and nerve to 
the hand that drew the bow. Although she uttered no 
word of command, yet she led the field, for Barak had 
said to her : ' If thou wilt go with me, then I will go : 
but if thou wilt not go with me, then I will not go.' 

It was the woman against the chariots of iron, and 
the woman was the victor. Sisera's great force was cut 
to pieces. Of the entire army of reckless brigands who 
had stood jeering behind the strong line of iron chariots 
only one solitary man escaped. That man was Sisera 
himself. Jumping from a chariot already cumbered by 
its dead charioteer he fled away on foot across the plain. 
He had escaped one woman : he was destined that day 
to fall into the hands of another woman — into the strong, 
relentless hands of Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite. 
The episode is graphically dealt with in the Book of 
the Judges. It is told how Jael called to the flying 
general, how she invited him into her tent, gave him 
milk to drink, and covered him over with a cloak as he 
lay on the ground weary and breathless. He begged her 
to stand at the door of the tent and watch. She did ; 
but she watched only the tired man under the cloak. 



THE ROAD TO NAZARETH 175 



When he was fast asleep she went softly to him and 
drove a spike through his skull with such intensity of 
hate that his head was staked to the ground. 

The road now mounts up the slope of the wooded 
heights which have faced us for so many miles. We 
pass for a little while through an enchanted country, 
through a forest of oaks and by green luxuriant glades. 
From the summit of the hill is a view of the Carmel 
range and of the whole length of the plain we have 
traversed since we set out upon the journey. Haifa 
is a mere splash of pure white on the edge of a sea 
of pure blue. Before the hill dips again there comes 
into sight another great plain, the Plain of Jezreel, 
a level, monotonous, treeless country, brown where the 
plough has lately passed, green where the corn is rising 
from the earth. It stretches away below us for many 
miles, the field upon which were fought the fiercest 
battles of the people of Israel. 

This is the land, too, of Jezebel, since, some way off, 
on a spur of the mountains of Gilboa, stands the town 
of Jezreel. The town is in a line with a hill called Little 
Hermon, which is pointed out to the traveller many 
times before the journey ends. Below the town lay 
Naboth's vineyard. It was in this vineyard that the 
tragic meeting took place between Ahab and Elijah. 
Ahab was strolling among the vines, smiling to himself, 
for his heart was full of delight. The coveted vine- 
yard at last was his. Naboth was dead — had been 
murdered in fact — so the king had gone down to the 
vineyard to possess it. He was pleasantly engaged in 
planning in his mind how he would lay it out as 



176 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



a garden of herbs in pursuance of a scheme he had long 
cherished. At a certain turn in the path the king's 
exulting steps were suddenly arrested. He staggered 
as one smitten with a palsy, for standing before him in 
the way was the stern, implacable figure of Elijah the 
prophet. ' And Ahab said to Elijah, Hast thou found 
me, O mine enemy ? And he answered, I have found 
thee.' It is recorded in the Book of the Kings that 
Ahab, before he died, built many cities and that he 
made for himself an ivory house, but there is no chronicle 
to show that he ever laid out the garden of herbs that 
had so long filled his dreams. 

Near to the hill of Little Hermon is a village called 
Sulem, which has been identified as the Shunem of 
ancient days. It was here that dwelt the kindly woman 
who built a little chamber on the wall of her house for 
the use of Elisha, who was continually passing through 
the village on his way to or from Mount Carmel. It may 
be remembered that she furnished it very simply with 
merely a bed, a table, a stool, and a candlestick. Not 
long after the chamber was finished she had a son. 
He died when he was still a little boy and the woman 
laid the dead body upon the bed in the chamber on the 
wall, while she went to Mount Carmel to fetch Elisha. 
It is possible to see from the hilltop nearly the whole 
of the ground she traversed on her way from Shunem to 
the mountain. 

Literature contains, both in history and in fiction, 
many accounts of the dying of children. Certain of 
these descriptions are finely written and are full of 
pathos, while many are so over-elaborated as to be 



THE ROAD TO NAZARETH 177 



mawkish and artificial. It may be doubted if a more 
exquisite or more vivid account of the death of a small 
boy, from sunstroke after playing in the harvest field, 
could be furnished than that set out in the Book of 
the Chronicles of the Kings. From the high road to 
Nazareth the traveller looks down upon the very corn- 
fields where the child played, and it is easy to imagine 
even in the time of the rains the intense heat of the 
flat on a summer's day. The account is given in these 
words : ' And when the child was grown, it fell on a 
day, that he went out to his father to the reapers. 
And he said unto his father, My head, my head. And 
he said to a lad, Carry him to his mother. And when 
he had taken him, and brought him to his mother, he 
sat on her knees till noon, and then died. And she 
went up, and laid him on the bed of the man of God, 
and shut the door upon him, and went out.' 

The road curving down the far side of the height 
crosses the plain and begins to mount up the hills on 
the other side. Among these hills Nazareth is hidden. 
It is a sorry country, for the land is bare, harsh, and tree- 
less. The slopes are grey with stones, while the misery 
of the place is deepened by the starving scrub which 
struggles to live among the rocks. Here is assuredly 
to be seen the poverty of the earth. When the high 
ground is reached there is once more a wide view of the 
plain, of the humble hills of Samaria, of Little Hermon, 
and of Mount Tabor, a lonely, dome-topped mountain, 
wizened and bleak. The treeless plain is cultivated in 
rectangular patches, which are green where the corn 
is springing and brown where it is as yet unsown. So 

N 



178 



THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



level is it that it looks like a faded green carpet, patched 
and darned with odd squares of russet. 

In this drear spot, at the foot of a melancholy hill, 
stands Endor, where, on a certain night, the witch saw 
rising out of the earth the figure of an old man covered 
with a mantle. By the side of the crone a trembling 
man grovelled on the ground, with his face to the earth, 
for he dared not look upon the spectre. This man was 
Saul, the King of Israel. It was not until the phantom 
had vanished that the king rose and sat upon the edge 
of the bed, weak and sore distressed, and still stunned 
by the awful words he had heard spoken. Dreary 
as the house of the witch must have been in the light 
of the sun, it would be a place of horror in the depths of 
the night. 

Not far from Endor the dragoman points out in 
this panorama of strange towns and stranger happen- 
ings a cluster of huts surrounded by a cactus hedge, 
and states that it represents the city of Nain, where 
the widow's son was brought back to life as he was 
being carried out of the town to be buried. This citizen 
of Nain was one of the few human beings who have 
been in a position to witness and to criticise his own 
funeral. 



XXI 



NAZARETH 

Nazareth clings to the slope of a hollow among the 
highlands of Galilee. It is surrounded by a semicircle 
of hills, said to be fourteen in number, and is a place 
hidden away from the sight of men. It is open only 
to the road that leads up from the plain along a 
shallow valley. In this valley are many fig trees. 
Those that are old and bare of leaves would seem to be 
fashioned out of grey coral, while at a distance a thicket 
of such ancients has the appearance of smoke trailing 
along the ground. In the valley also are pomegranates, 
oranges, a few palms, many olive trees, straggling vine- 
yards, and hedges of prickly pear. Nazareth lies in a 
cul-de-sac at the end of this dale. Its houses are ranged 
far up this slope so as to convey the impression of an 
amphitheatre among the mountains. The houses being 
built of white limestone the town is white. These 
white walls, and the verdant valley which flows like 
a stream of green towards the plain, are the only charm 
that Nazareth possesses beyond its memories of the 
past. 

This home of Joseph and Mary is a hill town that 

179 N 2 



i8o THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



calls to mind some remote village in the barrenest 
part of Derbyshire. The valley of fig trees is pleasant 
enough, but the whole of the high land that surrounds 
the place is lamentable in its leanness and destitution. 
The hills about Nazareth are naked, being littered 
with rocks and stones which have been washed by 
the rain and bleached by the sun to the colour of dry 
bones. The modern name of the town is en-Nasirah, 
which is by interpretation ' The Victorious.' It is an 
unexpected title which may be assumed to indicate the 
victory of man in planting an outpost of the living in 
this territory of the dead. 

It was in this land of stones that Christ spent the 
first thirty years of His life, the most impressionable 
period of a man's days, while it was amidst these grey 
surroundings that the great religion of the world came 
into being. The country is harsh and sterile, unkindly 
and unsympathetic, a country where life must have been 
hard and its pleasures ungenerous. The problem of 
living was here reduced to its most rudimentary factors, 
to the crudest conception of man in his struggle with 
the grudging earth. The human life that Christ looked 
out upon was life at its simplest and sternest, while 
at Nazareth two thousand years ago the now complex 
fabric of society must have presented but an elemental 
form. The town, lost among the hills, was cut off from 
the rest of the world, was far away from the tide of 
human affairs, being as secluded as a hermit's cave. 

There was one joy, nevertheless, ever present and 
ever precious in the town of Nazareth. It was this : 
from any gap in the steep street, or from any crag on 




A STREET IN NAZARETH 



NAZARETH 



181 



the desolate heights there stretched a view down the 
valley and across the mighty plain to the distant hills. 
It was a vision of green prairie and of purple steeps, a 
prospect full of hope, of emprise, and of imaginings. It 
was the joyous way that led out into the world. It was 
by this enchanted road that Christianity started on a 
journey which was destined to lead to the ends of the 
earth. It was this green valley, open to the south, that 
guided the flight of the messenger of peace. It was 
down this dale that the ray of light, pouring from one 
small window in the town, spread fan-like over the 
surface of the world. Such is the wonder of Nazareth 
to this day, the wonder that belongs to the birthplace of 
a great faith. 

The most conspicuous feature of modern Nazareth 
is afforded by the immense and imposing buildings of 
stone which rise from among the mean dwellings of the 
town. These are Christian edifices of various kinds, 
convents and monasteries, orphanages, churches and 
schools. As is the case with other sacred towns in 
Palestine, Nazareth is the scene of a very acute religious 
competition. If one Christian sect erects a palatial 
convent it is incumbent upon some other Christian sect 
to found an opposition building of still greater pretence. 
These arrogant buildings provide an unedifying spectacle 
of that bitter civil warfare which engages the world of 
Christendom. There is within the circuit of this little 
hill town a sufficient army of religious folk, equipped with 
sufficient ' means of grace ' to convert a continent, and 
yet the visitor is warned in the guide-book that ' the 
inhabitants are noted for their turbulent disposition.' 



182 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



Nazareth is not a Christian town because the followers 
of Christ are apparently more concerned in discomfiting 
their co-religionists than in bettering the state of the 
people about their doors. Nazareth, outside the walls 
of religious magnificence, is a poor place, a town of 
narrow and dirty streets, of unwholesome houses, of 
miserable slums, and of by-ways that stink with a 
stink not soon to be forgotten. The villages around 
Nazareth are among the most abject and the most 
filthy I have any recollection of, being composed of 
little more than a few pitiable huts clustering around 
a heap of manure as around a thing of joy. 

If one hundredth part of the money spent upon 
the religious buildings of Nazareth had been devoted 
to teaching the people to be clean, to making the town 
healthy, and to improving the condition of the needy, 
Nazareth would be a happier place than it is at this 
moment. The contrast between the superb stone 
convents, and the dens of squalor with which they are 
surrounded, is a remarkable anomaly. When Christ- 
ianity in Nazareth has exhausted the possibilities of 
bombast and display, and condescends to the dwellings 
of the poor, it will be well with the place, for then 
possibly the teaching of Him Who was meek and 
lowly may reach to the life of the people. An excep- 
tion must be made of the British Hospital at Nazareth 
which, without ostentation, carries out a valuable work 
of pure benevolence. 

The Church of the Annunciation is built over the 
site of the House of the Virgin. This house, it would 
appear, was a cave — so that Joseph and Mary must 



NAZARETH 



183 



have been cave-dwellers. The place of the Annunciation 
is also underground, and, as accuracy is important, a 
column marks the spot where stood the angel Gabriel, 
and another column the place where the Virgin received 
the angel's message and was troubled in her mind as 
to what the salutation meant. This cellar-like spot is 
a sad shock to those who have delighted in the scenery 
of the old pictures that portray the Annunciation. 
It is evident that Fra Giovanni Angelico did not receive 
the inspiration for his frescoes from this rock-cavern 
under a church. 

The visitor, now hardened and disillusioned in the 
matter of holy sites, can see without shrinking the 
kitchen of the Virgin and even the chimney of the same. 
The apartment, however, is not even a cave but is, 
in point of fact, an ancient water cistern, the opening 
into which plays the part of the chimney. There are 
other harassing discrepancies about the House of the 
Virgin of greater moment. The monks at Nazareth show 
the dwelling with a complacency which is unruffled by 
the fact that the real dwelling of the Virgin is at this 
moment in Italy — where it takes the form, not of a cave, 
but of a stone house, twenty feet in length and twelve and 
a half in width, the same being described as very simple. 
It may be stated at once that the Christian Church in 
Italy has obtained possession of the house by no other 
method of right than good, strong, sonorous lying. Their 
story is as follows. About the year a.d. 1291 the house 
of the Virgin at Nazareth had fallen into decay, as may 
have been expected of a village carpenter's cottage at 
the end of a thousand years. To save it from utter 



184 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 

loss it was removed in the year named. The removal 
was effected by angels and the means of transport was 
the air. The flying house was first of all dropped, as 
it were, on the coast of Dalmatia, between Fiume and 
Tersato. It seems to have remained there unclaimed 
for three years, at the expiration of which period it was 
again removed by angels, the air being once more the 
medium of transport and the carriage being accomplished 
during the darkness of the night. On this occasion the 
much-travelled building alighted in a field near Recanati, 
on the property of a widow of the name of Laureta. This 
lady seems to have appreciated the value of the stone 
building which had reached her after the manner of 
an airship, so that in due course a church was erected 
over the winged house, and around the church sprang 
the town of Loreto. The town is still there, being 
possessed of a railway station and hotels, and of cabmen 
with whom, Baedeker says, it is necessary to bargain 
beforehand. It is also ' infested by beggars and impor- 
tunate guides.' The church is still extant and the 
Casa Santa remains in excellent preservation. The 
matter, therefore, is beyond discussion, while the monks 
at Nazareth have to do as well as they can with a 
disused water tank with a hole in it. 

Although the visitor to Nazareth will view the carpen- 
ters' shops in the town with interest, he will probably 
decline to visit the site of the workshop of Joseph, or 
the synagogue in which Christ is said to have preached, 
and will refuse to look upon the block of hard chalk, 
eleven and a half feet long by nine and a half broad, 
which formed the table on which Christ dined with His 



NAZARETH 185 

disciples both before and after the Resurrection. 
The honest pilgrim is indeed exposed to severe tests 
in Nazareth. Of greater interest than these ridiculous 
objects is a cutler's shop, where men are making 
gardeners' knives as they have made them for centuries. 
These archaic instruments are like primitive razors. 
With them men still prune vines, cut grass, and gather 
fruit. There is reason to believe that this knife has 
changed but little, either in its outlines or in the 
manner of its making, since the days of Christ. 

Everyone who comes to Nazareth will visit Mary's 
Well. It is reached by wading through the filth of a 
nauseating suburb. As it is the only spring in the town 
it can claim, with some assurance, to be the stream at 
which Mary must have many a time filled her pitcher 
with water while she held by the hand the Child Jesus. 
The structure which surmounts the conduit is quite 
modern. The water issues through stone gullies in 
two streams. At Mary's Well the inhabitants wash their 
vegetables as well as their feet, they water their cattle, 
and at the same time carry out intimate toilet operations 
in the public eye. The women come hither to draw 
water, bringing with them ancient olive-shaped jars, 
or picturesque pitchers, as well as modern bedroom 
jugs with florid patterns, and discarded biscuit tins 
with labels in English still adhering to them. The 
surroundings of the place are damp and sloppy, while 
the women at the well are not out of keeping with 
their environment. One guide-book, in an account of 
Nazareth, says ' many pretty female figures are to be 
seen ' in the town. On the occasion of our visit these 



186 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



females had to a soul kept strictly to the privacy of 
their homes and had avoided the well as if its waters 
were poisonous to beauty. The only girl at the fount 
who had any claim to even local charm was marred as 
to her appearance by the fact that her bare legs rose 
out of exceptionally large police boots. 

Before leaving the Victorious City I experienced one 
vivid revelation of Nazareth as it was when Joseph 
and Mary dwelt there with the Child. Some hours 
before sunrise I looked out over the town. It was 
a night of stars and yet so dark was it in the hollow 
of the hill that no building, large or small, could be 
deciphered. There was enough shaping of the shadows 
to indicate that a silent town lay there at the end of 
the dale, but of church, convent, or cottage, minaret, 
or spire, there was never a manifestation. Against the 
faint light in the sky the summit of the surrounding 
hill was visible, clear cut as jet on dull silver, but 
without a house to mar the tracing of peak and dell 
that had been familiar to every Nazarene for twenty 
centuries and more. There was the town, and there, 
against the starlight, was the ridge above the town. 
Just as I saw it all so would it have appeared two 
thousand years ago, in the days when the story began. 
In a while the silence was broken by the crowing of 
a cock. A little later two donkeys pattered by 
along the road that leads to the south. Just such a 
sound as this must have stirred the dawn and have 
roused the ear of the sleeper when Joseph and Mary 
went down to Jerusalem with the Child. 



XXII 



FROM NAZARETH TO THE SEA OF GALILEE 

The journey by carriage from Nazareth to Tiberias 
is said to occupy ' about five hours.' We left Nazareth 
at 8 a.m., but, although our vehicle was light and our 
horses three, we did not reach Tiberias until nearly 
4 p.m. This discrepancy in time may be explained by 
the circumstance that it rained for the most part of 
the way. 

The road climbs the height at the back of Nazareth 
and then wanders for some time in and out among a 
waste of barren hills covered with stones. In the presence 
of a vicious rain egged on by an icy wind the prospect en- 
gendered what Shakespeare calls ' a villanous melancholy.' 
Looking backwards there is a fine, if hazy, view over the 
whole of Nazareth, while on the way Mount Tabor comes 
again into sight. This isolated, dome-shaped hill is 
over 1800 feet high. The dragoman endeavoured to 
cheer us by the announcement that the mount was on 
the frontier of Issachar and Zebulon, but it was too chilly 
to be stirred by information even of that kind. There was 
in ancient days a walled town on the summit of the hill. 

It possessed a great castle, a monastery, and no fewer 

187 



188 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



than three churches. It rose out of the plain as Mount 
St. Michael rises from the sea, an imposing height, crowned 
with battlements, towers, and spires. It is now a mass 
of ruins, but these ruins cover four square miles ; the 
castle is a heap of stones, while of the three churches 
there are only to be found inconsiderable remains. 

In the next valley to Nazareth is a village of some 
proportions. It presents a disgusting medley of mud 
houses, fowls, goats, heaps of dirt, men, and manure, 
all huddled together in a dread potpourri of filth. As 
the place is of no Biblical interest there is neither church 
nor convent here, the spot being evidently regarded as out- 
side the pale of mission work. For missionary enterprise 
in this country it is necessary that the ' field ' should 
possess in the first place that most valuable advertising 
asset, a Bible name. 

Among the hills a place reputed to be the ancient Gath- 
Hepher is pointed out. If the assumption of identity 
be true it was the birthplace of Jonah, and its dismal 
position may well account for the mental depression of 
that irritable and neurotic man. 

In due course the road reaches a level plain scarcely 
to be distinguished from the others traversed on the way 
from the coast. It is treeless but green, while on either 
side of it are ranged commanding hills. The dragoman 
made a kindly effort to enliven us by stating that the 
hills facing us through the drifting rain belonged to 
Kadesh Naphtali, but the prospect was so dreary that 
we received the news without enthusiasm. 

On elevated ground at the commencement of the plain 
is the village of Kafr Kenna, which is claimed by some to 



NAZARETH TO THE SEA OF GALILEE 189 



be identical with the Cana of the Bible. It forms an oasis 
in the flat, being situated in a thicket of olive trees, 
apricots, apples, and pomegranates. Just at the entrance 
of the village was an almond tree in blossom. Cana is 
a place of some 800 inhabitants who occupy a number of 
flat-topped, earth-coloured houses which are scattered 
about in disorder. There is a watering-place in the 
village where many lean kine and weary-looking donkeys 
were loitering aimlessly. A gaudy church, with a red 
roof and white walls, dominates the place, while about it 
are certain schools and a mission station. These buildings 
would appear to be greatly in excess of the spiritual 
needs of the settlement. We declined to alight from the 
carriage for the purpose of seeing in the church the actual 
water-pots of stone in which the water was turned 
into wine on the occasion of the marriage feast at Cana. 
For simple audacity this exhibition of the water-pots 
is not to be excelled, even in a country which, in the 
matter of deception, has dared much. 

Not very far from this village the road ends, so that 
the rest of the journey to Tiberias is by way of a track, 
deep in mud, across the coffee-brown earth of the plain. 
It was impossible for the horses to proceed except at a 
walk, while many a time the mud was so deep as to 
reach the axles of the wheels. There is no question that 
the best vehicle upon which to travel along a Turkish 
road in the winter would be a plough with a seat attached 
to it. Nothing on wheels could be adapted to cut its 
way through the perniciously adhesive mud of this 
particular plain. With three seated ploughs and three 
horses we should have fared well and have reached the 



igo THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 

lake in the allotted time. We lunched by the side of a 
mud-pond in a downpour of rain and in the full blast 
of a wind which might have just swept over a glacier. 

As we neared the scene of the Sermon on the Mount 
the mud assumed a very malignant condition. For more 
than a mile it took upon itself the consistence of potter's 
clay. The spaces between the spokes of the wheels 
became rapidly filled up with this substance, so that 
each wheel was changed into a disc of solid earth about 
one foot in thickness. When this magnitude had been 
attained all progress became impossible, since the 
revolving mass of clay jammed against the side of the 
carriage and brought it to a standstill. It was then 
necessary for the driver to alight and, by means of his 
feet and his hands, aided by violent speech, to get rid of 
the encumbrance. Before many yards were traversed 
the wheels had grown to their previous size, so that the 
carriage seemed to be supported upon four enormous 
grinding-stones. The horses stopped, and the kicking of 
the driver's feet upon the spokes and the clawing of his 
hands at the same commenced once more. 

We were at the time passing over some undulating 
downs so covered with stones that they might have 
rained from heaven. At the end of a shallow valley in 
these downs is a low hill with two peaks. The hill 
is said to be of volcanic origin and is known locally as 
the Horns of Hattin. Its sides are steep and grey, being 
covered, like the rest of the country, with stones. It 
is the only mound in sight. Its position is commanding 
and it is easy to understand that it has been selected — 
without authority in fact — as the Mount of the Beati- 



NAZARETH TO THE SEA OF GALILEE 191 



tudes. Although the Sea of Galilee is not yet visible 
from the track the Horns of Hattin can be seen 
from the surface of the lake. Here were uttered the 
words ' Blessed are the peacemakers : for they shall 
be called the children of God ' ; and here in July 
1 1 87 was fought, by men who called themselves the 
children of God, one of the most desperate and bloody 
battles of the great Crusade. The Christian soldiers, 
although they carried high above their spears and bows 
a fragment of the true Cross, were cut to pieces to a 
man at the very foot of the mount from which had issued 
the words ' Blessed are the merciful for they shall 
obtain mercy.' 

In a while the Lake of Gennesaret comes into view. 
The traveller looks down upon it from the hilltop which 
commands Tiberias. By the time we had reached the 
spot where the descent begins the rain had ceased and 
a faint light from the declining sun lit up this wild 
mountain country. The surface of the lake, smooth as 
a mirror, was in tint a French grey, while the hills and 
cliffs upon the distant shore were a hazy blue. It was 
hard to tell the more rounded hills from the clouds. 
The place was spectral and mysterious. The earth 
appeared unsubstantial and the water as impalpable as 
a sheet of mist, so that one could imagine that the 
whole scene might fade as a mirage when the sun fell 
full upon it. 



XXIII 



THE SEA OF GALILEE 

Before going down to Tiberias we halted to view the 
lake at closer range. The Sea of Galilee lies in a valley 
between steep hills. This valley is open to the north 
and to the south. The lake is pear-shaped, being some 
thirteen miles in length and about six miles at its widest 
part. It is 680 feet below the level of the Mediterranean. 
The Jordan enters the lake at its northernmost point 
and leaves at its southern extremity. The Sea of Galilee, 
viewed from a height, is picturesque to a certain degree, 
as must be any large collection of water among high hills. 
It could not, however, be said to be beautiful. The 
country around the lake is characterless, monotonous, 
and bare. It is a treeless country, grey with stone rather 
than green with grass. There is over all a sense of soli- 
tude and desolation. Once on a time the lake bustled 
with activity. Its waters were covered with galleys and 
sailing ships, and its beaches lined with fishing boats. 
Its quays were thronged with merchants, with officials, 
with wealthy idlers, with Roman centurions and their 
men. Along its shores were many large and prosperous 

towns. There was the town of Capernaum, conspicuous 

192 



THE SEA OF GALILEE 



193 



by its government buildings and its garrison of Roman 
soldiers ; while not far distant were the arrogant and 
pleasure-loving cities of Bethsaida and Chorazin. The 
lake would appear to have been as favourite a resort in 
Galilee as the Lake of Lucerne in Switzerland. 

The shores of the Sea of Gennesaret are now abandoned. 
It is possible to follow the coast for miles without detect- 
ing a sign of life. Only one town remains out of them all 
— the half-ruinous and wholly dirty town of Tiberias. 
The sites even of the cities of Capernaum, Bethsaida, 
and Chorazin are unknown. On the north border of 
the lake, where the hills are low, a patch of white 
on a slope leading to the sea marks the ruins of 
Tell Hum. In the opinion of some this stone-heap of 
Tell Hum might possibly mark the site of Capernaum, 
where Christ frequently dwelt, and which was spoken 
of as ' his own city.' Of this place He said, ' And 
thou, Capernaum, which art exalted to heaven, shalt be 
brought down to hell ' ; and if hell be nothingness the 
prophecy has been bitterly realised. As for Bethsaida 
and Chorazin the woe foretold of them has fallen heavily 
upon their laughter-echoing streets, for every trace of 
them has been swept from off the face of the earth. 1 

In full view from the hilltop is the Plain of Gennesaret, 
still fertile and even luxuriant, but neglected and forsaken 
like the rest of the land that surrounds the sea. At the 
edge of the plain a few miserable hovels indicate the 
village of Me j del, which is no other than the ancient 

1 A very admirable account of the Sea of Galilee and of the country 
which borders upon it is given in Dr. Ernest W. G: Masterman's Studies 
in Galilee. (Chicago. 1909.) 

o 



194 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 

Magdala, where dwelt Mary Magdalene. It would seem 
as if all relics of the Bible story had been wafted away, 
and that with them had vanished the charm of the old, 
pleasant days when the lake was a place of delight. 
Nothing, indeed, serves to keep green the memory of 
bygone times but the flowers which still, on the return of 
spring, people the land. Although they are the direct 
descendants of those flowers of the field that served to 
illustrate the discourse of Christ, they now bloom in a 
solitude, with none to ' consider ' them. 

The lake, on nearer view, fails to exhibit any hitherto 
undiscovered charm. It is still a lonely stretch of water, 
as monotonous and unsympathetic in its environment as 
the basin of a reservoir. The water certainly is clear 
and of a delicate plumbago blue, but the beach is harsh, 
being made up of sharp stones and rocks which are a 
sorry substitute for the smooth beach of clean pebbles 
that encircles the Dead Sea. Walking along the shore 
northwards from Tiberias, at the close of the day when 
the light is most full of magic, we expected much but found 
little. We came upon the bleached skeletons of horses and 
donkeys that had apparently crept down to the water's 
edge to die. Furthermore we encountered, with these 
remains, considerable and fetid heaps of town refuse, hor- 
rible rags that had once clung to men, discarded oil tins, 
and broken crockery. It may seem a sanctified experi- 
ence to walk in meditative mood by the Sea of Galilee in 
the still of the evening, but when one has to pick one's 
way among aggressive filth, and to hold a handkerchief 
to one's nose the while, even the enchanting story of the 
lake avails for little. There were certainly fishing boats 



THE SEA OF GALILEE 



195 



on the beach, such boats as Simon Peter may have used, 
but there was also a steam launch, built at Dartmouth 
in England, tearing by with much blowing of its whistle 
and much rattling of its screw. In the place of men 
' washing their nets,' as St. Luke describes, there were 
men washing a tourist char-a-banc which had been 
drawn to the brink of the lake to be rid of its mud. One 
could but feel, over and over again, that if there be 
anything in names this sea has every claim to the title 
of the Dead Sea. 

Tiberias, like many other objects in the East, looks its 
best from a distance. It appears then as a grey and white 
town within a wall and on the very edge of the sea. 
The wall is brown, is more or less ruinous, is crumbling 
feebly away in places, but is made gallant and bold in 
other parts by round towers of no mean girth. At the 
north end of the town is a considerable castle, belonging 
to the days of crossbows and catapults. There are, above 
the housetops, indications of dome, minaret, and palm. 
Indeed it is possible to conceive that people viewing 
Tiberias from the hill might think that they would like 
to live in this city by the lake for the rest of their days. 
They will not hold to that impression when once they have 
passed within its boundaries. 

Tiberias was never a place of great repute. It was 
a Roman city founded in the year of our Lord 26. It 
must have been of some magnificence and beauty, for it 
was here that Herod built his golden house, and it was 
here also that the palace stood which was notable in 
that it was adorned with figures of animals. 

The present town is made up of narrow paved streets 

o 2 



196 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



which are more or less liberally covered with filth, for 
Tiberias is famous for its dirt. The houses are uninterest- 
ing where not actually ugly. The bazaar is mean and 
squalid, while such little light as may penetrate into its 
stifling alleys is warded off by boards and by curtains 
of canvas or rags. It is, in short, a wretched and stinking 
place. 

The ' Temple Dictionary of the Bible ' states that ' in 
matters of cleanliness and sanitation the town is quite 
oriental.' This is a little severe on the Orient generally. 
The sanitation of Tiberias, being of the primordial kind, 
is worthy of some study, for it maintains in its integrity 
the hygiene of neolithic man. The thrifty housewife 
disposes of all offal, garbage, or general house refuse by 
throwing the same into the street. Practically all the 
streets slope towards the beach, so that when the rain 
comes the deposit is slowly slithered into the lake. As the 
water for household purposes is obtained from the lake 
there is established what is called a vicious circle, or 
rather a circular movement of germs from the house to 
the sea and back again. If there be no rain then 
there is the sun, which will dispose of the refuse by the 
uncompromising process of putrefaction. 

I cannot say that the humbler citizens of Tiberias 
could be exhibited as proving the value of that system of 
hygiene which is ' quite oriental,' for some of them are 
the most sickly objects to be met with outside a hospital 
ward. The most dejected specimens are certain Jews who 
crawl about the city like peevish convalescents. Above 
their ringlets they wear large black hats or fur caps, while, 
as to their bodies, they are clad in dressing-gowns such as 



THE SEA OF GALILEE 



197 



would be worn by persons who had been invalids for a 
lifetime and had never attained to normal outdoor 
clothing. They are gowns that suggest a frowsy, much- 
hollowed armchair by a stale bedside. These people 
dressed as invalids look like invalids, being thin, limp, 
and grievously pale. Some of them might have been 
hidden from^the light of day for months in dungeons or 
in lazar houses. 

Such is Tiberias, the sickly city, which exists to prove 
that mere stench is not fatal and that the persistence of 
human life is not incompatible with sturdy vermin and 
the lack of every observance of hygiene. 



XXIV 



THE ASCENT TO DAMASCUS 

Tiberias is not a place to linger at ; even a passionate 
sanitary inspector would find it pall in time ; so we re- 
solved to leave it with as much speed as the dragoman 
would sanction. One rash person at the hotel had said 
that if we stayed at Tiberias a little while we should 
find the place grow upon us. I realised even in our brief 
experience that it was growing upon us — as mould grows 
on a damp wall. We took our leave of the imperial 
city at 6.40 in the morning, while it was yet dark, and 
made our way to the boat through an earnest and self- 
assertive rain. The route to the quay is by a narrow 
paved street which was, for the moment, converted into 
a rivulet, the waters of which babbled over our feet as we 
walked. Its sickly eddies carried seawards the refuse 
of the night in the form of horrible rouleaux made up of 
fish entrails, rags, eggshells, vegetable garbage, paper, 
and a kind of fibrous dirt. The same melange formed in 
places islands or little dams of filth, and in other spots 
left raised beaches of stratified corruption. 

We ultimately reached the steam launch from Dart- 
mouth and crawled beneath the arched roof of rough 

198 



THE ASCENT TO DAMASCUS 199 



wood. A long sojourn on the Sea of Galilee, combined 
with many local repairs, has given the boat quite an 
oriental appearance. There were other English travellers 
escaping from the city at the same time, but it was too 
dark at first to make out their characteristics. It was 
interesting, as the light grew, to watch their features 
gradually take form and individuality, for up to a 
certain period they were merely human beings with a 
grievance, the grievance being Tiberias. It was like 
watching the gradual appearance of the image in a 
photographic plate during the process of development. 
We passed on the voyage the Baths of Tiberias and 
noticed that they were ostentatiously deserted, for 
Tiberias has not yet the making of a popular spa and 
health resort. The water of the baths is hot, and, 
according to the guide-book, is ' much extolled as a 
cure for cutaneous diseases.' If this be so, subjects 
for the cure should not be far to seek. 

The southern end of the lake takes the form of 
a low bank of clay of the colour of fire-brick. Through 
an insignificant gap in this bank, fringed with reeds, 
the Jordan sneaks out into the plain. A more common- 
place or less dramatic exit it would be impossible to 
imagine. It compares meanly with the heroic leap of 
the impetuous Nile as it bursts with a roar from the 
Victoria Nyanza on its long journey to the sea. The 
launch proved itself worthy of its maker on the Dart, 
for a fair breeze was blowing. The pilot was a half- 
naked man, clad in a turban and an English oilskin coat, 
who steered the boat with his bare foot. He would have 
been quite a personage at a West of England regatta. 



200 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



The landing is at the south end of the lake, at a place 
called Semakh. We were put ashore at a pier, and then 
reached the railway station by ascending a slope of mud 
as slippery as a bank of ice. The ascent would have been 
almost impossible but for a stream of rain-water which 
happily poured down the centre of the chute. By 
walking carefully in the water — a proceeding for which 
our experience at Tiberias had admirably fitted us — 
we all managed to gain a plateau where the mud was 
agreeably tenacious. 

The railway journey from Semakh to Damascus is only 
123 miles, but it occupies a day. There is but a single 
line of rails, the officials hold a spirited conversazione 
at every station, and the journey is all the way up-hill. 
Semakh is 610 feet below the sea-level, while Damascus 
is 2266 feet above it, so that a climb of 2876 feet has to 
be effected. This ascent is commenced almost at once, 
for the train, beyond Semakh, reaches promptly the 
steep sides of the hills which lie to the east of the 
Jordan. 

This part of the journey is picturesque as is the course 
of any mountain railway among precipitous heights. 
The train follows for many miles the intricate valley of 
the Yarmuk. This river is a tributary of the Jordan, 
and its khaki-coloured waters were at the moment 
swollen with the recent rains. The line winds in and out 
among the maze of hills, rising ever higher and higher, 
passing through wild gorges and through black ravines, 
creeping along a ledge cut half-way up the side of a 
precipice, plunging into a valley of trees, or skirting a 
glade of luxuriant pasture. Many caves in the rock are 



THE ASCENT TO DAMASCUS 201 



passed, and many a waterfall. The road turns upon 
itself more than once, so that it is possible, from a greater 
height, to look down upon the rails that have been already 
traversed. The river changes in due course from a 
huge masterful torrent to a mere hesitating mountain 
stream. 

The hills are lofty, grey-green, wild, and very bare. 
There are few signs of human occupation to be seen. On 
one pale slope may be dotted a number of black goats, 
like flies on a sunny wall. In one picturesque dell, close 
to the stream and at the foot of a terrific cliff, we came 
upon a Bedouin camp made up of black tents. These 
piratical-looking tents are fashioned of hair cloth, woven 
by the women, and are identical, probably in every 
particular, with those tents of ancient days — the comely 
tents of Kedar. Around the tents are the flocks and herds 
and the untidy and intimate paraphernalia of a camp. 
Once we happened on a solitary man climbing the smooth 
side of a hill among this wilderness of hills. He looked so 
lonely that he might have represented the last man left 
upon the earth at the Last Day. There were no signs 
of any roads, but here and there we passed a narrow 
toilsome path, made by the tramping of human feet 
and ever striving towards the summit. 

We were full of speculation as to what strange 
sight the summit would present. After plodding upwards, 
at a snail's pace, for hours we almost expected — in the 
manner of Jack of the Beanstalk — to find ourselves 
in a new country. As a matter of fact, when the top of 
the height was gained we did come into a strange country 
— into the remarkable land of the Hauran, the ancient 



202 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



land of Bashan of the tribe of Manasseh. This Hauran 
is a great raised plateau or tableland reared heaven- 
wards between the Jordan and the Waters of Merom 
in the west and the vast desert of Arabia on the east. 
It lies south of Mount Hermon and of the land of the 
Geshurites. Bashan was famous for its forests of great 
oaks and for its strong bulls. Everything in Bashan was 
upon a large scale. The king of the country at one time 
was Og. He was the last of the giants, but neverthe- 
less the Israelites ' smote him until none was left to him 
remaining.' He was a sovereign who was notable for the 
fact that he possessed an iron bedstead. This bedstead 
was nine cubits long, from which it may be gathered — 
if the cubit be taken at eighteen inches — that Og was over 
twelve feet in height. The bedstead was at one time ' in 
Rabbath of the children of Ammon,' and it is a remarkable 
circumstance that it is not shown to the tourist of the day. 
This is the only grave oversight of the kind I noted in 
the Holy Land. 

The tableland is a dead brown flat, boundless, treeless, 
and featureless. It extends all the way to Damascus, a 
monotonous desert of chocolate mud. In some places 
the mud is thickly covered with stones ; in other places 
there are no stones. This agreeable variation provides 
the only relief in the scene. The traveller, after gazing 
out of the window at ten square miles of level mud on 
one side and the same amount on the other, sleeps for 
an hour, or reads for an hour, and then looks forth again to 
see still the desert of mud stretching away to the horizon. 
The Hauran is, I should imagine, unique in its power of 
presenting the fullest realisation of boredom. 



THE ASCENT TO DAMASCUS 203 



In the days of King Og of the iron bedstead this plateau 
was covered with habitations, with no less than three- 
score cities, and the same, moreover, were cities ' fenced 
with high walls, gates, and bars ; beside unwalled 
towns a great many.' During the present journey we 
passed, at very rare intervals, a dejected village made 
up of square blocks of brown earth. Around certain of 
these villages was a high wall, built for no apparent 
purpose other than to keep out the surrounding mud. 
It can hardly be supposed that anyone would wish to 
enter one of these cities of the plain, or still less to take 
it by assault. It was a curious fact that these settle- 
ments of men were placed, for the most part, far from the 
railway — as if the inhabitants wished to enjoy the mud 
in selfish peace — and that very few specimens of the 
mud-dwellers themselves were ever to be seen. 

We stopped at certain stations without evident 
object, for from the majority of them no trace of human 
habitation could be perceived. It would seem as if 
the railway builders, when strained to the utmost by 
accumulative boredom, had sought relief in the dissipation 
of erecting a station. A station consists of an unhappy 
block house of stone, a water tank, and miscellaneous 
railway litter planted casually in the centre of a rust- 
coloured plain as bare as a sheet of iron. So far as I 
could judge the present purpose of these stations is to give 
to the officials on the train an opportunity of speech 
with their fellow-men. I saw no other business transacted, 
while the appearance of a passenger — an event that we were 
happily spared — would have produced almost a panic. 

An exception must be made of Derat, a town of 4000 



204 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



inhabitants, forty-seven miles from Semakh, where there 
was what the Americans would call ' quite a station,' and 
not only a station but a very excellent refreshment room 
and even passengers. Derat is the ancient Edrei where 
the unfortunate King Og — his iron bedstead notwith- 
standing—sustained his final and most disastrous defeat. 
It presents a somewhat rare assortment of ' sights,' 
viz. a reservoir, the ruins of a Roman bath, sub- 
terranean dwellings described as ' labyrinthine,' an 
inaccessible mausoleum, and a hall for prayer. Derat 
is, moreover, the junction for Mecca, and it may be 
assumed that as each train arrives the porters call out 
in Arabic : ' Change here for Mecca.' Not far from it is 
another station of note named El-Muzeirib, where the 
pilgrim caravan halts for several days both in going to 
and in returning from Mecca. 

In justice to the Hauran it should be said that it poured 
with rain during the many hours we spent in traversing 
the plateau, so that what was mud may under happier 
circumstances be good brown earth. Moreover this very 
earth is so exceedingly fertile that the entire tableland 
is a great grain-producing district. At the time of our 
crossing it was a ploughed field, levelled by the rain ; but 
in a few weeks the corn would be breaking forth, and the 
monotony of brown would be changed for a monotony 
of green. 

After what appeared to be days of crawling through 
a mud desert in the rain land was sighted to the left, in 
the form of low hills capped by a height covered with snow. 
We hailed this vision with so great delight that we might 
have been excused if we had exclaimed ' The land ! The 



THE ASCENT TO DAMASCUS 205 



land ! ' just as the ten thousand cried out ' The sea ! 
The sea ! ' when, after their dreary march, they came 
within sight of the Euxine. The hills were the southern 
end of the Anti-Lebanon range and the snow peak was 
Mount Hermon. Mount Hermon has an altitude of 
9380 feet. It presented on this occasion a singularly 
beautiful appearance, a dove-coloured peak with a sum- 
mit of dazzling white — for the sun shone on the snow 
— standing up against a sky of unbroken grey. In its 
general outline it recalled the exquisite mountain of 
Fujiyama in Japan. 

We reached Damascus at 7 p.m. The rain had ceased 
and the night was clear. Now Damascus is not only the 
largest city in Syria, but it is one of the great cities of 
the world, and is at the same time probably the most 
ancient of all existing towns. It has long outlived its 
contemporaries, Nineveh and Babylon, while its popula- 
tion is estimated at 200,000. One would feel assured 
that the traveller's arrival at Damascus, even at night, 
would be a notable matter, or at least a matter of which 
he would be conscious. One would expect a brilliantly 
illumined station with many offices, a platform crowded 
with porters, station officials, and awaiting friends, with 
outside a yard full of cabs, and beyond that the lights of 
a great city. It would be reasonable to imagine, for 
example, that the arrival at Damascus by train would 
be no less a circumstance than a like arrival at Con- 
stantinople or Cairo. As a matter of fact there are none 
of these things at Damascus, and the still greater anomaly 
exists that the voyager by train does not ' arrive ' at 
Damascus, or, in other words, there is no evident 



206 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



moment that marks — as it marks elsewhere — the act of 
arriving. 

What happened in this city, where no man ' arrives,' 
was the following. The train, which had been crawling 
in the dark for seeming hours, slowed down and finally 
stopped. It had done the same thing many times 
before. I looked out of the window mechanically and 
saw nothing — saw less indeed than was apparent at some 
stations on the plateau. As I was proceeding to sink 
again into a state of torpor the dragoman appeared and 
announced that ' this ' was Damascus. ' This ' was 
merely the silent night and a lagoon of mud. Into the 
lagoon we stepped, and as the mud poured icily over the 
tops of my shoes I perceived rails projecting above the 
flood, which showed that we were on a railway and not 
in a lake. There was no trace of any town, nor was there 
a vestige of any station, nor even a glimmer of a lamp, 
but by the light of a five-days-old moon it was possible 
to make out a clump of cabs and a few ragged men rising 
out of the waters. Attention was directed to this 
gathering by the fact that the men were screaming at 
one another with great intenseness, and had probably 
been so occupied for hours before the train arrived. We 
waded to a cab, the floor of which proved to be the 
nearest dry land, and proceeded to drive into the night. 

We were told that the drive to the hotel would occupy 
one hour, and the estimate proved to be true. In time 
we came to a town, to tram lines, to electric lamps raised 
aloft upon rough poles, to a street full of silent shops 
barricaded with odd fragments of wood and generally 
hung about with rags. This was a suburb of Damascus 



THE ASCENT TO DAMASCUS 



called El Meidan, a suburb in tatters, containing many 
men and much mud. 

On reaching the hotel we found it closed and appar- 
ently vacated. The household being, however, merely 
unconscious, had need to be aroused. Our telegram had 
not arrived, so we were not expected. This experience, 
together with others, revealed the fact that although 
there are telegraph offices in Palestine, where telegrams 
may be received and paid for, it is not to be inferred 
that any subsequent phenomena will develop. The fact 
that a telegram is left at a telegraph office does not 
imply that the message will ever leave the office, or, if 
dispatched, will ever arrive elsewhere. On this particular 
occasion our telegram did arrive, but not until we had 
been in Damascus two days. We found ourselves the 
sole guests in a very spacious hotel, which same proved 
to be the most comfortable of any we had happened upon 
in the present journeying. 



XXV 



THE CITY FROM THE HILL 

The city of Damascus is in many ways wonderful, 

in certain ways unique. It occupies a green oasis, level 

as a lawn, in one of the desert places of the earth. To the 

north of it rise the destitute hills of the Anti-Lebanon ■ 

to the east stretches the Syrian desert ; to the west is 

the bald range of Mount Hermon ; while on the south are 

the unprofitable slopes that lead up to the plateau of the 

Hauran. To a migratory bird it would appear as a green 

pool in the midst of a miserable waste. 

There are those who claim that Damascus is the oldest 

city in the world, the one ' abiding city ' whose fitful story 

can be traced through all known ages into the shadowy 

immeasurable past. When Rome was new Damascus 

was already old ; when the foundations of London 

were being laid by the Walbrook and on Tower Hill 

Damascus was a venerable city, weighed down by years, 

but still bustling and prosperous. It was to Hobah, 

' which is on the left hand of Damascus,' that Abraham 

pursued the bandits who had seized his nephew Lot, a 

citizen of Sodom, together with his goods. This record 

shows that even in the days of Chedorlaomer the king 

208 



THE CITY FROM THE HILL 



209 



of Elam, of Tidal king of nations, and of Arioch king of 
Ellasar, Damascus was a landmark of some note. More- 
over, when David slew no less than twenty-two thousand 
Syrians of Damascus who had come to the succour of 
Hadadezer king of Zobah the place must have been a 
stronghold of solid proportions, for a garrison of over 
twenty thousand men can hail from no mean city. David 
is reputed to have reigned between the years 1032 and 
992 B.C., yet even so far back as 1501 B.C. Damascus finds 
a place in the historical records of Egypt. Certain is it 
that Damascus was a centre of enlightenment and of 
bold affairs at a time when the island of Great Britain 
was a damp jungle in which a few mop-headed savages 
prowled about armed with flints. 

The city no doubt has had its evil days, its visitations 
of war, pestilence, and fire, but it would appear to have 
never been for long cast down. One can believe that 
it must have possessed some fountain of eternal youth 
that bubbled in its midst, so that the throng in its streets 
never lessened, nor was the voice of joy and contentment 
ever hushed in the gardens without its walls. However 
crushing may have been the disaster that befell it, 
Damascus soon sprang again into the sun, cheery and 
radiant, just as a gorse down, after it has been swept by 
fire, becomes only the greener in the summer that follows 
on. Damascus would seem, throughout the whole of its 
history, to have been great and prosperous, and it is 
great and prosperous still. It was some time ago foretold 
that this purely oriental and arrogantly conservative 
city would languish into nothingness upon the advance 
of modern science and modern methods of manufacture 



2io THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



and of commerce, but the town of to-day shows no signs 
but those of vigour, solid comfort, and self-satisfaction. 
Even the blight of Turkish rule has failed to dim the 
brightness of its people or the vivacity of its marts. 

Damascus in the past, the records say, was attacked 
by every known power in the ancient world, from the 
cultured Romans and the Franks to the savage hordes 
of Mongols under Timur. The city has been raided by 
the Egyptians and the Assyrians, by the Arabs and the 
Armenians, by the Persians, the Greeks, and the Turks, 
while even the Crusaders at one period made a half- 
hearted assault upon the Immortal City which came 
to nothing. It follows that Damascus has had many 
masters, but whether the city was, for the time being, 
Roman or Egyptian, Persian or Arab, it seems to have 
ever preserved, its indestructible personality. 

This perennial freshness, this power of remaining 
unchanged in a changing world, have depended upon 
many things. In the first place this Damascus in the 
desert possesses a treasure which is inexhaustible and 
which is to be found in no place nigh unto it. This 
treasure is a garden with a circuit of many miles, where 
drought is unknown and where the luxuriant soil can 
produce all that is wanted for the immediate needs of 
man, for ' out of the ground made the Lord God to 
grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good 
for food.' The rivers that water the garden may have 
come out of Eden and may have encompassed that land 
of Havilah 4 where there is gold.' ' Are not Abana and 
Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters 
of Israel ? ' asked Naaman the leper ; and the answer 



THE CITY FROM THE HILL 



is they are better than them all, for they have made 
of the place ' a fountain of gardens, a well of living 
waters.' 

More than this, Damascus stood like a vast caravan- 
serai at the cross roads of the ancient world. It stood 
in the way that was traversed in the great migration of 
the human race, when men moved from the East west- 
wards, when the spirit of wandering and of adventure led 
eager hordes to pass, like a swarm of bees, from some 
thronged and restless hive in the depths of Asia into the 
empty, silent lands of Europe. Damascus was planted 
upon the highway that reached from Nineveh and 
Babylon on the east to that great sea in the west whose 
waters spread beyond the limits of the known world. It 
stood in the way, too, of that road that came up from the 
south, from the lands of ancient Egypt and the wastes of 
Arabia, to press northwards in search of new worlds and 
fresh enterprise. Through the streets of Damascus, through 
the street which is called Straight, came, with jingling bells 
and brilliant burdens, the camel caravans from the Tigris 
and the Euphrates and the lands beyond. Up to Damas- 
cus tramped rugged seamen from the coast of Phoenicia, 
men whose boats lay rocking in the harbours of Tyre 
and Sidon, bringing with them skins and strange metals 
and tales of lands and of people stranger still. It was 
in Damascus that the men of the sea, who had looked 
upon the white cliffs of England, bartered, by signs and 
gestures, with the men of the desert who had passed 
through the land of Assyria and could tell of the wide, 
mysterious world that stretched beyond the rivers to- 
wards the rising sun. Thus Damascus stood at the spot 

p 2 



212 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



where the two great highways met along which passed the 
commerce and the armies of the ancient world. 

Damascus is said still to be the most oriental of all 
great cities of the present day, the city the least changed, 
the most in communion with the affairs and the peoples 
of the past, and the best fitted for any conception of the 
romance of the East. The reason for this is not far to 
seek. Damascus is still a great market of exchange 
between the East and the West. Side by side in one 
shop may be found the latest American safety razor and 
a specimen of Persian metal work five centuries old. 
You may buy in the town a cotton print of convulsive 
pattern that left the steam factory in Manchester but a 
few weeks ago, or a praying carpet, so faint in tints as 
to be almost a shadow, that was knelt on by some 
devout Moslem when Crusaders were harrying the land. 
From Damascus still leads the caravan route across the 
desert to Bagdad and the Persian Gulf. Wild men 
and their ragged camels stalk through the bazaars of the 
city who have come from Kurdistan, from the Zagros 
Mountains and even from the Caspian Sea. It is from 
Damascus that the famous pilgrim road to Mecca starts 
on its long journey to the holy south. It is from 
Damascus that the traveller must set out who would go 
to Palmyra, to the wonderful Street of Columns, and to 
that great temple of the sun which was dedicated to 
Baal. 

It is possible in Damascus to alight from an electric 
tramcar for the purpose of seeing the camels unload in 
the great Khan, camels that have forded the Euphrates 
and have been on the journey as many weeks as a steamer 



THE CITY FROM THE HILL 



would take days to go from England to the Cape of Good 
Hope and back. Here can be seen the solemn merchant 
sitting cross-legged at the receipt of custom, duly robed 
and turbaned, the scribe busy at the corner of the street, 
the water-carrier with his dripping goat-skin, and the 
story-teller entrancing a group of idlers by the gate. Here 
can be heard the call of the muezzin from the mosque, 
the hubbub around so little a bargain as the selling of 
two sparrows for a farthing, and the hammer of a man 
who, in his garb, aspect, and methods, differs in no essential 
from that Alexander the coppersmith who did much evil. 

At the north-west corner of Damascus the hills 
come close to the city, so close indeed that the precipice 
of Jebel Kasyun actually overhangs the town. This 
mass of bleak stone, 3700 feet in height, is notable in the 
beauty of its colouring, in its tints of yellow and brown, 
the yellow being drifts of sand, the brown being masses of 
outstanding rock. The hill is a hill of great fascination 
when viewed, with the sunlight upon it, against a back- 
ground of blue sky. It is bare of any trace of life, of 
even a weed or a blade of grass. It might indeed be a 
mountain of iron dusted with a chocolate-coloured rust, 
while its very grimness, dryness, and barrenness contrast 
vividly with the rose-loving, fountain-splashing city at 
its foot. The best view of Damascus — the one supreme 
view — is to be obtained from Jebel Kasyun, either just 
above the suburb of Es Salehiyeh, or from a point higher 
still — such as the ruined Dome of Victory or the Tomb of 
the Seven Sleeping Brothers. It is one of the never-to-be- 
forgotten prospects that the world provides. From 
my own experience I would say that there is no view of 



214 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



a city from a height to be compared with it. The prospect 
of Cairo from the citadel, or of Florence from the Torre 
al Gallo, are charming enough, but they cannot approach 
to the wonder of the view over Damascus from the tomb 
where the brothers sleep. 

At the bottom of the hill the plain stretches straight 
away to the horizon, where it is lost in a blue haze as if 
in a vast lagoon. On either side of the plain, but many 
miles away, are low, purple hills which run parallel to 
one another until they too are lost in the far mists. Within 
these delectable boundaries lies a garden of trees that, 
from the mountain, looks like a well-trimmed wood, but 
it is a wood of orange trees and poplars, of walnut trees 
and roses, of plum trees and pomegranates, of apricots 
and almonds, of shady walks, of pergolas, of vineyards 
and reedy pools. There is no garden comparable with it, 
for it extends towards the south and the east for no less 
than nine miles, while buried among its shadows are 
over one hundred villages. 

In the midst of this garden is the city, a brilliant sand- 
coloured plaque inlaid in green, just as a piece of ivory 
is inlaid in the lid of a Damascene casket or as a bright 
pebble is embedded in a mat of moss. The outline of 
the city is sharply cut. It has the shape of a hand 
mirror, the handle being the narrow, long extended suburb 
of El Meidan. The general colour of the city, as it 
gleams in the sun, is a bright, yellowish brown, but it is 
mottled with white, with grey, and with faint blue. In 
the matter of tint it is most fitting to be compared with 
a sand dune covered with seagulls and hidden in a green 
thicket. There are details in this bright splash of colour 



THE CITY FROM THE HILL 215 



which are only perceived when the first shock of admira' 
tion has passed away — the details of minarets and 
towers, of cupolas and domes, together with flat roofs at 
varying levels to the number of many thousands. 

If it be realised that the expanse is immense, that 
the white minarets stand up against the blue of the 
lagoon of mist, and that beyond them all is a clear sky 
with woolpack clouds resting on the edge of the world, 
it will be understood that the view is one of amazing 
fascination. 

It was at three o'clock in the afternoon that we saw 
the city from the hill, and at the moment when the magic 
of the scene was the most absorbing the cry of the 
muezzin rose like the song of a bird from the galleries 
of a score of mosques 



XXVI 

naaman's river 

Damascus is large, and the crowd that throngs its endless 

streets is not only vast but infinitely varied. This was 

especially to be noted at the time of our visit, when 

pilgrims from Mecca were pouring into the city, day 

after day, to the number of thousands. Great and 

heterogeneous as is the crowd it is in good heart. Every 

one appears to be cheerful and to be quietly content. 

There is lacking that cloud of melancholy which hangs, 

like impending fate, over Jerusalem, and which fills its 

lanes with the abject, the purposeless, and the whining. 

The people of Damascus chatter like daws as they hurry 

about their business, while the slinking wretch who 

creeps silently along, hugging his empty stomach and his 

flapping rags, is rare to see. There are very few beggars 

in Damascus. One misses, too, with relief the rabble of 

hollow-eyed children, blue with the cold, who ever clamour 

for baksheesh, as well as that awful company of the 

maimed, the halt, and the blind who seem to have escaped 

alive from a morgue. Compared with Jerusalem there 

are more cafes in Damascus and less religion. The 

town may be the better or the worse for this, but it loses 

216 




Abraham's oak, Damascus 



NAAMAN'S RIVER 



217 



nothing in cheeriness nor in the outward signs of well- 
being. A city, as a human settlement, is to be gauged 
by its suburbs, and the suburbs of Damascus are good 
to linger in. 

The streets are fairly wide, the passages in the bazaar 
are spacious. Slums there are, no doubt, but they do not 
obtrude themselves, while I came upon few of those 
fetid alley-ways where the sunless walls drip misery, and 
where the figure of a man groping for a mouldy door 
presents the most terrible picture of ' home ' that the 
tale of humanity can provide. The sanitation in Damas- 
cus is no doubt ' oriental,' but the place is, by comparison, 
clean, and by 'appearance wholesome, while the filth 
and stenches of a town like Tiberias are unknown. 

Then, again, the Damascene is a lover of trees. 
Wherever a tree can grow there will a tree be found, 
so that there are few open streets where a splash of green 
is not to be met with. The most remarkable tree in the 
city is a venerable plane or sycamore, called ' Abraham's 
oak.' It stands near the bazaar of the carpenters. 
Its age must be extreme, for its trunk is now a mere 
grey shell that looks like a tent with the door thrown 
open. Furthermore the Damascene is a lover of gardens, 
and thus it is that wherever there is space for a garden 
there a garden flourishes. It would be curious to happen 
upon a pergola covered with creepers in a corner of 
Lombard Street, or in a gap in the Rue des Petits Champs, 
yet such a spectacle is provided, over and over again, in 
the centre of the busiest quarter of Damascus. In some 
parts of the city, especially towards the walls, there is 
hardly a house, poor though it be, that has not, on its 



218 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



flat roof, an arbour shaded by a spreading vine. The 
arbour-builder is the better for his work, and the children 
who play under the trellis gain a greater share of that 
peace which passeth all understanding than do the little 
urchins who build mud grottoes under the precipice 
of bricks that constitutes a modern industrial dwelling. 
Damascus, therefore, in spite of all recent developments 
elsewhere, is still pre-eminently the Garden City. 

The vitality of the town, and indeed its very existence, 
depend upon the two famous rivers, the Abana and the 
Pharpar. The Pharpar comes to the plain from the 
range of Mount Hermon. It brings water to the more 
distant gardens, but has no concern with the city itself, 
being, in point of fact, some seven miles beyond the 
circuit of its walls. The Abana, or, as it is now called, 
the Barada, has its sources among the slopes of Anti- 
Lebanon. Above Damascus the river breaks up into 
some seven streams, two of which go direct to the city. 
It is :in the north-west corner of the town, about the 
foot of Jebel Kasyun, that the Barada makes its entry 
into Damascus. It is a cheery stream, dancing along 
with all the impetuosity of youth. It keeps at first to 
a staid channel, beneath orderly bridges, but when it 
reaches the actual town — when it should be the most 
decorous — it suddenly dives underground and disappears. 

From this point the river and its thousand streams 
play a mad frolic in the place, a gambol of hide and seek 
with all the merriness, the mischievousness, the elfishness 
of Puck. What tricks it perpetrates beneath the 
square where the camels wait I do not know, but it 
turns up again, bubbling with laughter, by the fruit 



NAAMAN'S RIVER 



219 



market, makes happy a garden or two, cheers a dull 
street, whispers music under a cafe wall, and then bolts 
out of sight beneath a sober house to begin its under- 
ground pranks once more. I spent a morning following 
this sprite of a river, this Robin Goodfellow of a stream, 
but was compelled to abandon the chase as too bewilder- 
ing. It was impossible to believe that this frivolous, 
gossiping stream was the ancient Abana for which 
Naaman the Syrian had so reverent a regard, or that 
such a flibbertigibbet could be responsible for supplying 
electric power to the tramway company of Damascus. 

The river breaks up in the town, as already said, into 
a tangle of streams which penetrate to every nook and 
corner of the city. You peep through the back door of 
a humble shop and there, beyond the stone courtyard, 
is the stream. In a gap in a street you hear the splashing 
of water, and behold, over a parapet is the madcap river 
welling up from under the road. Its waters eddy through 
a hundred gardens, drop into a hundred pools, and 
splash the pigeons that come to drink at innumerable 
fountains. 

Just outside the town the Barada emerges as a 
somewhat meek little stream, shorn of its blithesomeness, 
slower of foot, and so sobered as to be wellnigh silent. 
It is no longer impetuous ; it no longer rollicks along ; 
it has been sullied by the city ; its waters have become 
dull. The Abana is middle-aged, disillusioned, and tired 
of the world. 

The end of the once joyous river is very sad. It 
wanders listlessly among the orchards and the fields. 
Plum blossoms and rose petals fall unheeded upon its 



220 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



sallow surface. The merry life has come to a close, and 
the happy company that danced into the city is broken 
up. The weary stream never reaches the sea. It enters 
into a sullen and unsympathetic marsh. It hides its 
face in the mud, among the barren rushes, and in this 
Slough of Despond it dies. 



XXVII 

THE STREETS OF THE ' ARABIAN NIGHTS ' CITY 

The charm and interest of Damascus lie solely in its 
streets and in the people that fill them. With the 
exception of the Great Mosque there are no public 
buildings in the town of any especial concern. There 
are few sacred sites, spurious or otherwise, to visit. 
There are practically no antiquities to muse over, for 
Damascus has so little care for the past that within its 
walls ' there is no remembrance of former things.' It 
may disregard the past, but it lives in it. It belongs 
to the world as it was many centuries ago. In not a 
few particulars it has kept unchanged since the days 
of Christ. It carries the visitor back into mysterious 
ages — not as Egypt does, by means of monuments and 
symbols and things that have been buried with the 
dead, but by the pageant actually played by living 
human beings before the eyes of the onlooker. 

Here are to be seen customs and modes of dress 
which are as old as history, details of living and processes 
of manufacture which appear to the traveller now just 
as they did to the visitor from Babylon. There are still 
looms at work in Damascus which differ but little from 

221 



222 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



those that kept deft, yellow fingers busy at the time 
when the caliphs reigned. There are shops which, with 
their particular goods, would be as familiar to the 
Damascene of four centuries ago as they are to the 
citizen of to-day. 

Damascus is a city of magic in whose streets are pre- 
sented the daily doings of a world which is but little 
nearer than is the world of dreams. It is a city that 
played an intimate part in the tales of the ' Thousand 
and one Nights.' Indeed, some of the strangest happen- 
ings that those nights record took place by the banks of 
the Abana. It is still the city of the ancient stories, for 
it has altered but little since the fair Shahrazad told the 
tales to the king. Here are the very streets she described, 
the very shops, the very people. It is possible to believe 
anything in Damascus. It is only necessary to walk 
through the lanes at night to acquire a faith in J inns 
and Efreets and those other abrupt spirits who meddled 
in the affairs of men when the caliphs and their viziers 
strolled about disguised in search of adventure. 

The principal streets of Damascus, as well as the 
chief bazaars, are wide enough for carriages to pass, 
while there are many narrow lanes of interest which can 
only be traversed on foot. There is that easy irregularity 
about the streets, and that perverse avoidance of all 
formality, which are characteristic of the East. No two 
adjacent houses are of the same height or style, nor do 
they show any disposition to stand in order. Some 
streets follow lines so unsteady that they may have had 
origin in the visions of a town-planner drugged with 
hashish. 



A STREET IN DAMASCUS 



THE STREETS OF THE CITY 



223 



The majority of the houses are built of wooden frames 
filled in with laths and pearl-grey plaster. On occasion 
the lower story may be of black stone and the upper 
parts of unbaked bricks, while some of the humbler 
dwellings are fabrics merely of mud and chopped straw. 

Most picturesque in the residential quarters of the 
city are the narrow lanes whose roadways are trodden 
earth. Here are projecting windows propped up by 
sloping beams, projecting stories that nearly meet across 
the path, suspicious peep-holes in the wall, casements 
full of lattice-work, unexpected archways, as well as 
ancient doors studded with nails, and windows barred 
like a prison. 

I am sure that in one of these lanes I came upon the 
house of that Jewish physician who had the awful 
experience with the dead hunchback whom he found 
propped up in his vestibule (as recorded in the Twenty- 
fourth Night), and who ran out into the street calling, 
' O Ezra's ass ! O Heaven and the Ten Commandments ! 
O Aaron and Joshua the son of Nun ! ' 1 

There may be donkeys asleep in the lane, or fowls 
scratching about, or an artisan at work, squatting in the 
road with his back to a wall, while the path itself will be 
strewn with straw and husks, discarded oranges, and 
unintelligible litter. It is at night, when the moon is 
high, that these by-ways of the city are the most allur- 
ing and the most full of magic. Then do strange and 
beautiful things appear that were unnoticed in the day : 

1 This and subsequent quotations from the Arabian Nights' Entertain- 
ments are from the excellent edition of Edward William Lane, in three 
volumes (London, 1912). 



224 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



the black shadows of balcony railings on white walls, 
the unfathomable gloom of an entry, the moonlight 
on a veranda and its empty bench, the wonders of 
light and of shade on the roofs. It is such a scene as 
this that enables one to understand what is meant in 
the Bible by ' the precious things put forth by the 
moon.' 

Many mosques are come upon, for there are some two 
hundred and forty-eight of these houses of prayer in 
Damascus. They are all picturesquely shabby, for it 
seems to be an ill thing to defile an ancient Moslem 
church by the process known in England as ' restoration.' 
Some are built of black and grey stone arranged in 
horizontal layers, and are of considerable dignity. Others 
are humbler, being made up of plaster and bricks, the 
bricks coming in evidence where the plaster has fallen 
into the street. To look for a second into the courtyard 
of a mosque is to gain a glimpse of such mystery, com- 
pounded of white pavements, arched passages, and 
slow-moving, hooded figures, as the spectator may wish 
to indulge in. In incongruous places are foreign-looking 
government buildings, very ill at ease, which might have 
been translated from a country town in France, as well 
as suburban villas, with red roofs and white-walled 
gardens, which would be more in place at Nice. 

The houses of the rich in Damascus are very exu- 
berant. Within the gate is a courtyard, open to the 
heavens, and paved with coloured stones. In the centre 
is a raised pool of marble with a fountain splashing in it, 
while arranged around the court are the living-rooms, 
just as in an ancient posting hotel in France. The walls 



THE STREETS OF THE CITY 225 

are gaudily painted or are covered with brilliant tiles. 
Flower beds have a place in the court, wherein are orange 
and lemon trees, pomegranates, and beautiful shrubs. 
There may be a colonnade with couches and cushions, 
or a wonderful recess tortured with decoration and 
arranged as a kind of bourgeois throne-room, the same 
corresponding to the ' best drawing-room ' of the Western 
world. It aims — as does the best drawing-room — at 
expressing the owner's conception of luxuriance and 
style, for this is ' the saloon fitted up for his pleasure, 
that his bosom might expand in it.' It allows for such 
expansion, but it is, nevertheless, stiff and uncomfortable, 
and a little like an exhibitor's show-case. 

Decoration in the principal apartment of the house 
itself is carried to such excess as to border on delirium. 
The walls seem to have been sprayed, from a dozen jets, 
with gold and silver as well as with every colour of the 
spectrum, and to have been worked up into headache- 
producing patterns as irritating as are the details of a 
silly puzzle. The windows of this room are filled with 
lines of such complexity as to suggest a dozen problems 
of Euclid thrown together to make a framework for the 
glass. The medley of mirrors and lamps, of rugs and 
pillows, of purposeless hangings, and of dazzling odd- 
ments in brass, ivory, inlaid wood, and silver, cause the 
room to be as full of discordant ornament as a parrot 
house is of noise. One might as well live in the tube of 
a gigantic kaleidoscope ; yet this is the ' spacious saloon ' 
of the ' Arabian Nights ' — just such a saloon as that in 
which the lady of Bagdad entertained the porter ; for 
that room, it may be remembered, was ' decorated with 

9 



226 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



various colours, and beautifully constructed with carved 
woodwork and fountains and benches of different kinds, 
and closets with curtains hanging before them. There 
was also in it, at the upper end, a couch of alabaster, 
inlaid with large pearls and jewels, with a mosquito 
curtain of red satin suspended over it.' It was in this 
apartment that the porter became intoxicated — a circum- 
stance that could be condoned in any man of quiet 
tastes with a belief in the simplicity of the home. 

There is an ancient wall encompassing the city. 
Although it presents many a breach, and is, on occasion, 
altogether lacking or lost, yet an interesting afternoon 
may be spent in following it as far as it can be traced. 
It is a shabby and ill-looking wall, old certainly, but too 
disreputable in appearance to be in any way venerable. 
The lower courses are Roman, being composed of well-cut 
stones of immense size. The middle part of the wall is 
Arabian and is made up of small irregular stones, from 
which the mortar has been eaten away as if by some 
process of ulceration. The upper part of the wall is 
Turkish and, like other things Turkish, is in a state of 
ruin. The wall is pierced in many places by odd, in- 
consequent windows which have the appearance of being 
greatly surprised to find themselves looking out upon the 
ditch. 

It will be remembered that when St. Paul was in 
Damascus ' they watched the gates day and night to 
kill him,' and that, to circumvent the unpleasant-minded 
' they,' ' the disciples took him by night, and let him 
down by the wall in a basket.' It is needless to say that 
the lamb-like tourist, still sick from excessive lying, is 



THE STREETS OF THE CITY 



shown the actual window from which the agile apostle 
was lowered. The window may have an antiquity of 
twenty years. It is perched, moreover, on the top of 
the Turkish wall. Had the circumstance occurred in 
the Holy Land the basket also would be exhibited at a 
moderate charge. 

Of the few remaining gates of the city the most 
picturesque is the East Gate. It was the gate from 
which the road led across the desert to Nineveh and 
Babylon. It was built by the Romans, and it can readily 
be seen that it consisted, at one time, of three arches, a 
large central entry, with a small archway on either side. 
The existing gate is represented by one of the smaller 
passages only. 

There is shown to the believing in Damascus the 
house where ' a certain disciple at Damascus, named 
Ananias ' lived. A narrow door in a lane leads to a paved 
courtyard in which is a garden. From this yard steps 
descend to a small subterranean chapel, dark, damp, 
ancient, and uninteresting. It contains a few benches, 
such as are used in infant schools, and an altar. In a 
mouldy recess the home of Ananias — who, like other 
holy folk, would appear to have been a cave-dweller — 
is pointed out by an unwilling dragoman who protests 
that he is not a party to the fraud. 

As an antidote to the spurious house the traveller 
would do well to visit the very genuine hospital of the 
Edinburgh Medical Mission. It is situated beyond the 
walls, in a pleasant suburb which calls to mind the 
outskirts of Paris. Here, in a garden full of flowers, is 
a hospital which, without any regard to nationality or 

9 2 



228 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



creed, has carried out for long a most admirable and 
benevolent work under the direction of Dr. McKinnon, 
who has been resident in Damascus for over twenty 
years. 

However little life in Damascus may have changed, 
the change in the hospitals of the district has been very 
complete, as may be gathered from the following account 
of the out-patient department of the Bagdad hospital in 
the days of the Prince of the Faithful, as set forth in the 
' Arabian Nights.' It appears that a young man of good 
position known as Ghanim the son of Eiyoob, or the 
Distracted Slave of Love, fell into a state of poverty and 
ill-health. He was at last found leaning against the 
wall of a village mosque, in a condition of sickness and 
destitution too unpleasant to be detailed. The villagers 
took him in hand and applied first aid, following the 
same with certain domestic remedies. These preliminary 
measures were persevered in for the unreasonable 
period of one month. As Ghanim continued to get 
steadily worse under the treatment it was resolved that 
he should be sent to the Bagdad hospital for further 
advice. A camel-driver was found to whom the following 
instruction was given : ' Convey this sick person on the 
camel and, when thou hast arrived at Bagdad, put him 
down at the door of the hospital : perhaps he may 
recover his health, and thou wilt receive a recompense.' 
It was evident that the villagers had not a high estimate 
of the hospital, and that their expedient for getting rid of 
the sick Slave of Love was very extreme. The camel- 
driver held even a lower opinion of the institution, for 
when he had conveyed the helpless man to the hospital 



THE STREETS OF THE CITY 



229 



he put him down on the doorstep and promptly departed. 
He was evidently convinced that a prospect of recompense 
depending upon the professional ability of the staff of 
the hospital was based on grounds so infinitely slight 
that he would not wait to see them materialise. He does 
not seem to have even knocked at the door. Anyhow, 
the out-patient department so precisely maintained its 
title that the sick man did actually lie outside the door 
all night and until the following morning. 

By the morning the patient ' had become so emaciated 
that his form resembled that of a toothpick.' A crowd 
collected to look at this strangely shaped human being, 
and were continuing their observations when the sheik 
of the market arrived and drove the idlers away. In 
the meantime the hospital authorities had exhibited no 
interest in their solitary out-patient. Possibly the house- 
surgeon may have looked out of the window, may have 
muttered the word ' drunk/ and have returned to his 
breakfast. Now the sheik had an opinion of the hospital 
of his native town which was even lower than that of 
the camel- driver, for he said : ' I will gain Paradise by 
means of this poor person ; for if they take him into 
the hospital they will kill him in one day.' It is only 
fair to the hospital to say that the staff had displayed 
no anxiety to admit the sufferer into what the sheik 
regarded as a lethal chamber. On the other hand the 
sheik's views as to the value of the charity saved the 
life of Ghanim the son of Eiyoob, for the sheik took him 
into his own home and told his wife to look after him. 
This excellent and most practical woman ' tucked up 
her sleeves and, having heated some water, washed 



230 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 

his hands and feet and body and clothed him in a 
vest of one of her female slaves.' The clothing pro- 
vided for the sick man appears to have been a little 
scanty, but in spite of all things he made an excellent 
recovery. 



XXVIII 



THE BAZAARS 

The bazaars or shopping quarters of Damascus are of 
infinite variety and of manifold degree. There is the 
Bond Street of the city as well as the Houndsditch and 
the Lambeth Marsh. The bazaars are not made up of 
a mere medley of shops, but each is constituted by 
a collection of shops of a particular kind. It is as if 
Oxford Street in London were devoted solely to the sale 
of boots, Regent Street to saddlery, Holborn to hats, 
and the Strand to drugs and spices. 

The bazaars in the city are, for the most part, covered- 
in passages, ranging from lofty and wide tunnels, on the 
one hand, to mere rag-shaded alleys on the other. Most 
of the bazaars are dark. To enter one from the glaring 
street is like passing from the open road into a wood. 
The larger bazaars, especially those in the construction 
of which much timber is used, suggest the hold of a 
great ship, where goods have been stored along both the 
port and the starboard sides, and where the deck above 
is arched instead of flat. Certain are roofed over by a 
long line of stone and plaster domes which thus form a 
ceiling of inverted cups. In the meaner kind the sky 

231 



232 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



is shut out by casual boards and tattered canvas or by 
fragments of mats, while in some the wooden roof is in 
such disrepair that it provides little more cover than 
a fishing -net. 

There is a curious atmosphere in the bazaar, as if the 
air were tinged with brown. The sound of traffic also 
is strangely dulled, owing to the facts that the floor is of 
trodden earth, that many among the crowd are bare- 
footed, while the soft leather slipper is a thing of silence 
compared with the nailed boot on a pavement. The 
bazaar will be crowded from side to side and from end 
to end. Infinite sounds from human throats will fill it, 
as the hum of the sea fills a cavern, but beyond this 
is only a faint rustle — as of wind among rushes — the 
scuffle of human feet. 

To form a conception of one of the larger bazaars let 
the Londoner imagine the Burlington Arcade a quarter 
of a mile long and three times its present height and 
width. Let it be as dimly lit as the nave of a City church 
in November, let the road be of foot-polished earth, and 
on either side imagine a row of coachhouses thrown 
open and stuffed with goods from floor to roof, with, 
above these recesses, the windows of a Bayswater mews 
or the iron fanlight of a booking-office. Conceive the 
arcade crammed with the company of an opera, based 
upon the ' Arabian Nights,' and that, strolling among the 
crowd, are a few camels and donkeys with an occasional 
Arab sheik on a horse. It would be strange to see in 
the Burlington Arcade a horseman buying a necktie at 
a shop door without dismounting, but the spectacle is 
common in Damascus. The light in the bazaar is derived 



THE BAZAARS 



233 



largely from flaws in the roof and from side alleys 
or cross streets, or possibly from dormer windows in 
the domes. It provides an appropriate atmosphere of 
mystery to the place. I am loath to add that some of 
the shops — not the shops which belong to the time of 
the Caliph Haroon Er-Rasheed — are lit with electric 
light. The prevailing colour of the arcade or aisle of 
the bazaar, as well as of the crowd that fills it, is brown 
— brown dotted with red and white, the red being the 
tarboush, and the white the turban. As for the shops, 
their colours are so infinite that they produce the effect 
of an exceedingly bright herbaceous border arranged 
in the shadow of a wall. 

Of the individual bazaars one of the cheeriest is that 
occupied by the leather sellers, for here are saddles of 
great magnificence, trappings for mules, and head orna- 
ments for camels, blazing with every colour under the 
sun and alive with hanging balls and with bright things 
that jingle. There are, moreover, saddle-cloths of high 
degree, coloured girths and saddle-bags, brilliant haver- 
sacks, and leather bottles as reckless in tint as a child's 
toy-box. This bazaar is one of the most ancient as well 
as one most typical of the East. An English fox-hunter 
may wear a scarlet coat, but it would be unseemly if he 
went to the meet mounted on a yellow and blue saddle 
secured by girths of green and purple, his own back 
being hidden by a haversack embroidered with silver 
thread, while his horse was dripping on all sides with 
balls of wool, suspended on strings, or with tassels in 
black and pink, and at the same time was sparkling like 
a Christmas-tree. 



234 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



Near by is the coppersmiths' quarter, made noisy 
enough by the clatter of fifty hammers, but very inter- 
esting as displaying a craft which has altered but little 
since the days of that Alexander for whom St. Paul had 
so strong a dislike that ' he delivered him unto Satan.' 
Here and in the smiths' bazaar is to be seen a primeval 
bellows made of a cowskin, with the hair still on it, the 
same being shaped like a carpet bag. It is worked by a 
listless boy who has only to carry out the simple process 
of opening the bag and then shutting it. Here or here- 
about may be seen the first lathe of the first lathe-maker 
— the spindle of which is rotated by means of the string 
of a bow — as well as a locksmith at work on a lock which 
only the rogues of the ' Thousand and One Nights ' would 
understand. The silk bazaar is another brilliant quarter 
of Damascus. Here is silk of every tint and texture, 
adapted to every purpose — from the beautiful keffiyeh or 
Arab head-cover, to a Battersea table-cover that bursts 
upon the eye with the effect of an explosion. Scarves 
and turban bands hang from the shop roof like rainbow- 
coloured stalactites or like the fibres of some wonderful 
banyan tree whose roots dip into a dyer's vat. 

The cotton bazaar is a little disappointing, for 
although damask derived its name in the past from 
Damascus it is probable that the damask to be now seen 
in the city is derived from Manchester. This bazaar, 
which appears to be the Galeries Lafayette of Damascus, 
is ever filled with native women, waddling about con- 
fusedly like ants in a disturbed ant-heap. They serve 
to show that the great passion of women, the passion 
for shopping, is as intense in the unregenerate female 



THE BAZAARS 



235 



as it is in the most advanced. Some women were pecking 
eagerly about among the bales like fowls in a newly 
discovered pasture ; others turned the cottons over 
hurriedly as if they were hunting for a mouse. In the 
matter of bargaining the Moslem lady is hampered by 
her veil, the veil both muffling the shrillness of her 
speech and at the same time checking the volume of it. 
I imagined that one woman, who was shaking like a 
cinematograph figure and was screaming the while, must 
have been stabbed by the shop-walker, but the dragoman 
assured me that she was simply declining to pay what 
was the equivalent to the final halfpenny in the account 
and was calling somewhat freely upon Allah (' whose 
name be exalted ') in connection with this righteous 
matter of discount. 

The second-hand clothes bazaar is not pleasant. 
There are certain features about discarded clothing in 
the East — where insect life is luxuriant and where 
cholera is common — which it is not well to linger over. 
In each of these shops the garments dangling from the 
ceiling or wall look like the shrunken bodies of former 
possessors, so that each stall is a species of Blue Beard's 
chamber lacking the blood and the heads. Less easily 
identified articles of clothing hang down like the shrivelled 
leaves of some dreadful kind of weeping willow. It is 
said that each bazaar has its distinctive odour. This 
is true. Possibly a red deer could scent the old clothes 
bazaar in Damascus before the city was in sight. 

Ten shops entirely full of scarlet slippers afford a 
striking object, while the fitting on of slippers in the open 
roadway, where the customer has the advantage of the 



236 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 

criticism of the passer-by, is also notable. Scarlet is 
not the only colour in the shoe bazaar. Soft yellow 
slippers are worn, as are also pointed shoes in any primary 
tint. There are clogs, moreover, made of wood and 
ornamented with little inlaid diamonds and squares 
of mother-of-pearl or of bone. A man will cut a pattern 
in a clog with his hands while he fixes the clog with his 
foot. A clog maker who had lost his great toe would 
apparently have to abandon his trade. 

Those who love a blaze of yellow, a flood of primrose 
yellow, of maize yellow, or the yellow of a sand beach 
in the sun, should visit the basket bazaar, where their 
eyes will be feasted. The tobacco shops, which are so 
bright in England, are the dullest of any in the East. 
The tobacco is displayed in sacks, has the colour of dried 
peat, and the general aspect of fodder for animals. To 
choose tobacco from a series of coarse bags standing on 
the floor of a poor sort of hay store is inconsistent with 
the idea of purchasing a luxury. 

The food shops in Damascus are remarkable, being 
indeed very unlike any corresponding establishments in 
the West ; yet human food, one would imagine, would 
differ less than human clothing among civilised people. 
There are innumerable cafes in Damascus, but they do 
not concern themselves with solid food. They are 
after-dinner resorts, places for coffee and tobacco, for 
conversation or general idling — corresponding, in fact, to 
the smoking-room of an English club. There are restau- 
rants too, dealing mysteriously with meat and broth, 
but so full of steam as to make all details obscure even 
to the clearing up of the point as to whether the guests 



THE B'AZAARS 



237 



themselves are not undergoing some process of stewing 
by steam. There is no doubt, however, that in the more 
elegant of these eating-houses it would be possible to 
order such a repast as the Lady Zubeydeh prepared for 
the sultan's steward, to wit ' a basin of zirbajeh sweetened 
with sugar, perfumed with rose-water, and containing 
different kinds of fricandoed fowls and a variety of other 
ingredients, such as astonished the mind/ 

The average Damascene is a real ' man of the street.' 
He appears to indulge in an ambulatory meal, picking 
up his food as he goes, eating his meat in one bazaar, 
his sweets in a second, his dessert in a third, while he 
finally squats on the ground to take his coffee from an 
itinerant coffee vendor. If a man were to deposit himself 
anywhere by the street side it is probable that all the 
food he wanted would pass before him in the course of 
the day, although not necessarily in the order he would 
wish. If a merchant, sitting cross-legged in his shop, 
desires to smoke he beckons to him the first pipe vendor 
who comes in sight. This man brings him a nargilch, 
or other kind of pipe, fills it, lights it with a hot coal, 
and leaves the merchant to suck at it. In due course 
he returns for the pipe, receives his pay, and hands the 
mouthpiece on to the next customer. This common 
street pipe is no more agreeable to modern ideas than 
would be a general toothbrush, while to conduct smoking 
upon the principles of a book-lending library is a process 
that will remain peculiar to the East. 

In Damascus the place of the ' bar ' or refreshment- 
room counter is taken by itinerant drink sellers. They 
are for the most part uninviting-looking folk, being 



238 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



unpleasantly damp. They carry plain water or liquorice 
water in goatskins, to drink from which would be, to 
the fastidious, akin to drinking from an ancient leather 
boot. Lemonade or raisin water, the drink of the 
smarter set, is carried in a two-handled jar with a narrow 
neck by a man who, as he walks, rattles the brazen cups 
from which all his customers refresh themselves. I 
imagine that to wipe this cup — a proceeding never dreamt 
of — would be equivalent to a reflection on the whole- 
someness of the person who last made use of it. Yet 
Damascus seems to fare very well without these sanitary 
refinements. 

From wandering merchants it is possible to buy 
nearly every article of food that can be conceived of, 
from hot roast meat to walnuts. Out of a couple of open 
sacks, slung on the back of a donkey, you can obtain 
dates or dried apricots, as well as less distinctive dried 
objects that may once have been fruits. From wooden 
tubs, carried also by a donkey, it is possible to purchase 
such foreboding items of food as cucumbers and turnips 
pickled in vinegar. The passer-by, moreover, may pick 
from a pannier a handful of pistachio nuts, or pluck from 
one of many greasy skewers a lump of meat that would 
make many a one turn vegetarian. 

Of all these food hawkers — none of whom, it may 
be said, are for a moment silent — the vendor of hot roast 
meat is the most remarkable. In an iron trough, held 
vertically, is a fire for cooking. The trough is divided 
by what may be called two floors into three stories, in 
each of which is a fire. In front of this pillar of fire is 
a vertical iron spit upon which are impaled circular slices 



THE BAZAARS 



239 



of lean mutton, alternating with slabs of fat derived, 
according to the dragoman, from the sheep's tail. The 
chef — who is unclean — rotates this spit before the 
upright fire by turning a handle, like that of a barrel 
organ, fixed to the lower end of the meat column. As 
soon as the surface of the roll of meat is sufficiently 
cooked he cuts slices from the same and hands them to 
the diner. The rotating roll of frizzling mutton is by 
this means gradually reduced in girth until the spit alone 
is left. The gourmet can have his meat cut off from that 
part of the cylinder which is opposite to the ground floor 
fire or from those parts which are cooked on the first or 
second floors. 

The bread, of course, is obtained at the bakers. 
It takes the form of pancake-shaped slabs which resemble 
pieces of thick chamois leather — a little burnt in places — 
rather than bread. The purchaser will buy half a dozen 
of these slabs, which he will roll up, as if he were rolling 
up six sheets of thick yellow paper, and will deposit them 
in his pocket. The first time I saw bread thus disposed 
of, projecting from a man's pocket, I mistook it for an 
unfamiliar form of Panama hat rolled up. It is well to 
note that this bread, when eaten, is not cut but broken, 
so that, indeed, about the time of noon the ' breaking 
of bread ' is very general throughout the bazaar. There 
is another kind of bread which is made in the form of 
rings. A number of these quoits of crust, strung on a 
cord so as to form a kind of pastry necklace, will be seen 
hanging in festoons from the roofs of bakers' shops of 
the better type. 

The variety of cakes purveyed in the city is endless, 



240 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 

whether regarded from the point of view of size, shape, 
composition, or colour. Some are sold hot, some are cold. 
Some are mere lumps of undecided dough, while others 
are finished discs the size of the seat of a chair. The 
majority are so tempting in appearance that even bakers 
from the Land o' Cakes would find much to learn in 
Damascus. Very popular in the streets is a thin wheaten 
cake, spread with butter and grape syrup and sprinkled 
with sesame seeds. This article takes the place of the 
stolid, uncompromising bun of the English refreshment- 
rooms — which bun seems to be impervious to change and 
to be an emblem of that melancholy which is assumed to 
be a feature of the British mind. 

The confectioners' shops are among the most fascin- 
ating in Damascus. They are scrupulously clean and 
very daintily arranged. There are trays full of enticing 
confections of every shape and colour, sweets in balls, 
in strings or in rocky masses, sweets like cubes of green 
putty, sweets like masses of clear crystal, lumps of yellow 
jelly in dishes, blue basins full of white curds, little 
saucers of blancmange sprinkled with sliced cocoanut, 
pistachio nuts and almonds, open tarts, and finally 
humble nodules of batter frying in oil. From the great 
number of these shops it is evident that the Damascene 
has still as intemperate a love of sweet things as he 
had in the days of the ' Thousand and One Nights.' One 
of these dainty shops might well be the very one where 
Ajeeb the son of Hasan Bedr-ed-Deen, in company with 
his servant, ate a conserve of pomegranate grains and 
almonds sweetened with sugar, and drank rose-water 
sherbet infused with musk ' until their stomachs were 



THE BAZAARS 



241 



full.' It must have been no mean feast, for Ajeeb was 
very hearty, while the servant wielded a whip ' that could 
strike down a camel.' 

The ' department ' for drugs, spices, and perfumery 
is very enchanting, for here can be inhaled the undoubted 
and only reputable ' perfumes of Arabia/ Here one 
can obtain, as in the days of the Happy King, ' ten kinds 
of scented waters, rose-water, orange-flower water, and 
willow-flower water, together with sugar and a sprinkling 
bottle of rose-water infused with musk and frankincense, 
and aloes-wood, and ambergris, and musk and wax 
candles/ Owing to the fact that charms have become 
discredited there may be some difficulty in obtaining, 
at the same time, ' a round piece of benj of such potency 
that if an elephant smelt it he would sleep from one 
night to another/ 

The barbers' shops present another interesting feature 
in the bazaar. The stalls are hung with mirrors, accord- 
ing to ancient custom, while the barbers themselves are 
busy, apparently all day long, shaving men's heads. 
Barbers and hair-cutters in all parts of the world are 
very apt to be garrulous, and I was interested to note 
that these minor artists of Damascus never ceased from 
chattering, whether they were at work or at rest. This 
is a very old grievance against the fraternity — as is 
made painfully evident in the story told by the tailor of 
Bagdad. He speaks of a young man who took infinite 
pains to find a barber who was competent and was at 
the same time ' a man of sense, little inclined to imperti- 
nence, that he may not make the head ache by his 
chattering.' The barber that this young man did finally 

R 



242 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



obtain so overwhelmed him with his speech that the 
youth ' felt as if his gall bladder would burst.' This 
distressing accident happily did not occur, but the barber 
talked with such deadly persistence that his flow of 
speech led in the end to the breaking of the leg of the 
tailor's friend, while, on the other hand, the shaving of 
his head was never completed. 

A stirring but noisy feature in certain bazaars is the 
auction, which appears to spring up at any moment with 
the unexpectedness of a street row. The auctioneer, 
in the pursuit of the business, not only talks incessantly 
but maintains a state of perpetual movement, for he 
runs about from shop to shop and from person to person 
with the article for sale until a bid is offered that he 
can accept. His running comments have probably 
altered but little since the days of the 'Arabian Nights,' 
where the following report of his breathless utterance is 
to be found : ' O merchants ! O possessors of wealth ! 
Everything that is round is not a nut ; nor is everything 
long, a banana ; nor is everything that is red, meat ; 
nor is everything that is ruddy, wine ; nor is everything 
tawny, a date ! O merchants ! this precious article, 
whose value no money can equal, with what sum will 
ye open the bidding for it ? ' 

After many days of wandering through the labyrinth 
of shops there is left on the mind a sense of amazement 
at the number of things a man wants or thinks that he 
wants. 



XXIX 



THE CROWD 

There is a belief, based upon evidence gathered by 
philologists, that the nations of Europe and certain of 
the peoples of Asia had their origin from a common 
stock, known as the Aryan race. It is supposed that 
the home of these primitive Aryans was somewhere 
about the southern steppes of Russia, and that in the 
process of time the family broke up and the members 
of it wandered away in various directions. Those who 
went towards the east founded the Persian nation and 
peopled the northern parts of India. Those who travelled 
to the north-west became known, in the fulness of days, 
as Slavs and Teutons, while from these two branches 
sprang the Russian and the Pole, as well as the Scan- 
dinavian and the Anglo-Saxon. Some wended their 
way to Greece and made the name of the Greek ever 
memorable, while the ancestors of the Celts and the 
Romans, following the course of the Danube, penetrated 
into Italy, France, and Spain. 

Very many centuries have passed away since this 
astounding family scattered. It is not to be assumed that 

they ' moved ' in a day, nor has it ever been suggested 

243 R 2 



244 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



that any strong family feeling was maintained among the 
parted relatives, or that the remote descendants of the 
present hour feel drawn towards the southern steppes 
of Russia as towards an ancient home. In spite of such 
indifference the whole family meets unconsciously once 
a year, the meeting-place being the bazaar in Damascus, 
and the time that of the Mecca pilgrimage. It was at 
this period that we chanced to be in the city, and could 
claim to take part in the gathering as representatives of 
one branch of the family. The gathering, be it noted, is 
an assembling together of representatives of the entire 
Aryan or Indo-European stock, and it is doubtful if in 
any other spot a meeting so comprehensive can be found. 

There are Persians to be seen in the crowd, men for 
the most part distinguished by their gorgeous silks, as 
well as pilgrims from the northern provinces of India who 
are on their way back from Mecca. These frontier folk 
constitute probably the finest specimens of the original 
race, being tall and powerful men, many of whom are 
conspicuous in quilted coats and white turbans or 
conical hats made of fur. The Slavs are well represented 
by the immense body of Moslem pilgrims from various 
parts of Russia, as well as by casual Bulgarians, Illyrians, 
and Poles. The Teuton is portrayed by the German and 
the British man of business, while I have no doubt that 
a little search in Damascus would discover a Norwegian, 
a Swede, or a Dane. The Greeks, of course, are very 
prominent. There is, indeed, a Greek bazaar in Damascus 
where they reign supreme. In the matter of dress they 
adopt a simple compromise in the form of the tweed suit 
of the West and the tarboush of the East. A less happy 



THE CROWD 



245 



blending of these two worlds is afforded by the man who 
wears a shop-walker's frock coat and a white turban. 
He, however, is not a Greek, and may himself be in 
doubt as to his nationality. The descendants of the 
Roman and of the man of Gaul will be illustrated by 
the French railway engineer, the Spanish trader, and 
the Italian seaman from the port of Beyrout. 

It is as a spectacle, however, rather than as an 
assembly of men, that the crowd in the bazaar is of 
interest. It is a substantial crowd, for it fills the roads 
and alleys to the walls. It is a cheerful crowd, for 
although many go about their business with gravity, 
there are others who loiter along, idle, indifferent to time, 
fool-happy, and eager to be amused. In some narrow 
places in the bazaars, at the height of the day, the passage 
is wellnigh blocked, so that men must needs push and 
gasp their way through the strait, as a torrent through 
a gorge, while over the hubbub hangs a haze of sweat, 
noise, and dust. The place is as full of strange voices 
as a madman's cell, while above the general hum will 
rise, from time to time, a ripple of laughter, the yell of 
some mischievous boy, the call of the donkey driver, and 
the cry of the hawker of odds and ends. 

The crowd is composed almost entirely of men, and, 
for the most part, of men wearing turbans and long 
robes. These robes, when worn by Dives, are of fine 
cloth, very stately and dignified, but when covering the 
lean loins of Lazarus they are of a mean stuff that once 
was white but has now taken upon itself the hue of the 
earth. These men in gowns, of whatever degree, recall the 
garb and bearing of medieval figures of the kind found 



246 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



in ancient religious paintings, where they are seen kneel- 
ing before thrones, or carrying offerings, or in procession 
on a journey. There are very many red tarboushes 
among the heads of the people, with, now and then, the 
fur cap of the Jew. Jews are not so common in Damascus 
as they are in Jerusalem. They are as little contented- 
looking as an oriental Jew will ever allow himself to 
appear. Ringlets and side locks are ' not worn,' but 
the dressing-gown is clung to as well as the gaberdine 
and the napping felt hat. 

A proportion of the tarboush and turban wearers 
are quite florid in their dress, for in the place of the 
long robe may be found a jade-green jacket, a pink 
scarf for the waist, lemon-yellow headgear, and black, 
bag-like trousers. A white cloth round the tarboush, if 
it be no more than a shred of cotton, is considered chic, 
and with such a head-dress it would be appropriate to 
wear a fawn-tinted mantle over a black coat, or a long 
snuff-coloured cloak with sleeves as ample as those of 
a Master of Art's gown. Many of the men in the 
bazaar have their heads merely tied up or bandaged 
up with cotton cloth. They might have all come from 
some popular casualty ward, were it not for the fact 
that the surgical-like head-dressing varies from mauve 
to ruby, from cherry-red to pink, from green to brown 
or blue. A purple skull-cap edged with fur, worn with 
a grey coat over a lilac skirt, is much in vogue with 
those to whom dress is a serious thing. 

Some of the less fortunate frequenters of the bazaar 
are mere bundles of rags, one rag of a cloak or coat having 
been placed over another such garment. A man of this 



THE CROWD 



247 



type, if cut in two, would look like a section of a many- 
coloured onion. His life and times can be read to a 
certain depth by the strata of his clothing, just as 
geological history can be read by stratified deposits. 
The outer rag is possibly grey and no doubt belongs 
to the present period. The blue rag beneath may go 
back five years ; the brown-black shred, visible through 
the holes in the superjacent layers, may have been 
added to the collection twenty years ago, while possibly 
the filaments of red that appear to be in contact with 
the skin belong to the time of a joyous youth. 

What may be the nationality of all these folk, and in 
what pursuits they are engaged, none but a superhuman 
dragoman could tell. They belong to the period of the 
' Arabian Nights ' as well as of to-day, for I have no doubt 
that among them are ' Zeytoon the bath keeper, and 
Saleea the wheat seller, and Owkal the bean seller, and 
Akresheh the grocer, and Homeya the dustman, and 
Akarish the milk seller.' The man I was most anxious 
to meet was the one-eyed calender, that particular 
one who, when cutting wood, found a trap-door at the 
foot of a tree, which same led to a staircase and finally 
to a ' lady like a pearl of high price.' I came upon him 
after many days. There was no doubt as to his identity. 
It was his left eye that was missing, as the story says. 
He wore a conical grey hat with a rag round it, a loose 
pink jacket, and a blue skirt. In his hand he carried a 
long staff. It was quite evident that he had passed 
through boisterous times, for it was this calender who had 
the awful experience with the Efreet, Jarjarees the son 
of Rejmoos. I looked in vain for the son of the vizier 



248 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



El-Fadl. It may be remembered that he was a youth 
very bountifully endowed by nature, for he was ' like 
the shining full moon, with brilliant countenance and red 
cheek marked with a mole like a globule of ambergris 
and with grey down.' 

Wandering through the town are many Bedouins from 
the desert. Especially are they to be met with in certain 
quarters, in windy squares, and about the great caravan- 
serai. They are supremely interesting, tawny men, sun- 
burnt and weather-stained. Many have very wrinkled 
brows as if from long looking at a sand trail blazing in the 
sun. They wear a grey head-cloth kept in place by a 
rope of black goat's hair twisted round the skull, and are 
enveloped in a wide, shapeless cloak fashioned of brown 
and cream-coloured cloth in stripes, each stripe being a 
foot wide. The design is a little loud for city wear, but 
it must be useful in the waste of the desert, since the 
cloak could be seen from afar as readily as a striped buoy 
in a channel. 

There were numerous Turkish soldiers in Damascus, 
who had been disbanded there after a period of active 
service, and who were supposed to be making their 
way home. They were about the least military-looking 
people I have in recollection. Strong and gallant men, 
no doubt, but slovenly and very gross, they drifted about 
in the bazaar like khaki bundles in a tideway. Their 
heads were wrapped up in sulphur-coloured towels. 
They wore their socks outside their trousers, and 
their boots, which had never been either laced or 
blacked, were woefully down at heel. They were slow- 
moving, tortoise-like men, as vacant in expression as a 



THE CROWD 



249 



person under chloroform. Some officers we saw on the 
parade ground of the city, were, on the other hand, 
exceedingly smart and fierce, although their ferocity was 
a little softened by the fact that many carried dainty 
umbrellas, while others wore galoshes over boots which 
no doubt were accustomed to wade through blood. 

In addition to the ordinary Damascene crowd are 
the numerous strangers within the gates, the passers-by, 
the pilgrims returning from Mecca, and the human 
flotsam and jetsam that have drifted from the wide East 
into the backwaters of Damascus. It is very difficult 
for the unlearned to ascertain the nationalities of the 
various migrants, for the normal dragoman appears to 
divide all unusual folk into two classes. If the indefinite 
man is of yellow complexion and wears boots he is a 
Russian ; if he is of brown complexion and does not 
wear boots he is an Indian. As this is not a method of 
classification employed in the science of ethnology the 
results are imperfect. 

Those who stand at the street corner would see go by, 
in the course of the day, a couple of Nubians as black as 
coal and dressed in black and white, followed by Moors 
in white with coarse cowls over their heads. Next may 
come along sun-tanned, placid men with features of a 
Mongolian type, who wear Robinson Crusoe hats of black 
astrakhan, fur coats, with the bare skin outside, or capes 
of black goat's hair, the costume being completed by 
cumbrous boots. They are reputed to come from 
Kurdistan. There are other Mongolian-featured folk 
who wear immense, black, dome-shaped caps trimmed 
with brown fur, and long grey coats with ample skirts. 



250 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



These, I am told, come from ' somewhere north of 
India ' — a vague address which would include also the 
Isle of Wight. 

There are very few women to be met with in the 
streets. With rare exceptions they will be dressed in 
black and will be veiled. The younger of these are 
picturesque enough, for they have well-shaped heads and 
move with a graceful, languorous ease. Of more than 
one it would be fitting to say that she had — as the 
Arabian teller of tales would express it — ' a figure like 
the letter Alif Of the beauty of these ladies it is of 
course impossible to speak, but one is prepared to believe 
that, like Shahrazad's heroines, each will have eyebrows 
like the new moon of Ramadan, a nose like the edge of 
a polished sword, cheeks like anemones, and a mouth 
like the seal of Suleyman, so that, considered generally, 
every one of them would be ' a temptation to God's 
servants.' Occasionally a veiled woman will pass by 
who is dressed wholly in green, or a pretty, white-faced 
Jewess will pick her way demurely through the crowd. 
She will be clad in black to conform to the canons of 
propriety, but will so far exhibit the weakness of the 
flesh as to indulge herself in pink stockings and a bodice 
of cerulean blue. Women of the humbler classes, coming 
in from the country, will be riding on donkeys, riding 
astride, be it noted, after the fashion of Eastern women 
everywhere, and as no doubt the Virgin Mary rode with 
the Babe. The old masters were apt to depict the Virgin 
in her flight as a pale, stiff, self-conscious Italian lady, 
mounted sideways on a donkey as if sitting on a bench. 
Possibly they had never seen the lithe, olive-skinned 



THE CROWD 



251 



peasant woman astride of a donkey, or, if so, had failed 
to note the gracefulness of her pose. 

Over and above the folk who tramp from sunrise 
to sunset through the streets are the men who sit in the 
shops. Some of these are so still and so silent that they 
appear to have been hypnotised. Others are reading the 
Koran or repeating their prayers. Two or three may be 
talking together with such solemnity and with such 
dignified gesture that they may be philosophers discussing 
the origin of all things. A few will be smoking in pro- 
found peace, while others are adding up accounts with 
such an air of effort as is displayed by a ploughboy 
doing sums on a slate. Now and then an old and lonely 
man, with hazy eyes and furrowed brow, will be seen 
sitting limply on the ground with his back to a wall, the 
picture of one who awaits the coming of death. 

Very interesting folk also are the letter writers. 
The humbler of these squat at the street corners, while 
their more fortunate brethren occupy little packing-case- 
like shops. The more exalted of these shops are furnished 
with a striped sofa and a striped armchair, while the less 
ambitious have to be content with a couple of rush-bottom 
stools. The client is usually a woman who, deeply veiled, 
kneels or crouches by the side of the writer. She is so 
very voluble that the scribe — a bored man in a red 
tarboush — has to restrain the outpouring of her speech. 
He possibly explains that the day is long and that Arabic 
characters take time to form. Moreover, there is much 
delay when the ink on the sheet has to be dried with 
sand. Those who cluster about the writers in the road 
are mostly Bedouins or peasants. They have not much 



252 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



to say, but speak with vigour. Often I think the message 
they would have conveyed is a message of vituperation, 
if one might judge from the violence and heat with 
which the correspondent occasionally dictates the script. 
He is apparently anxious to insert as many terms of 
abuse as the fee will allow of. 

Great as is the crowd in the bazaar, and mixed as 
is its composition, there are everywhere good order and 
smiling amiability. On occasion, however, a sudden 
shriek breaks forth in the genial street, followed by the 
sound of a slap, and in a moment the loungers in the 
bazaar are drawn into a heated clump, as particles of iron 
are clustered round a magnet, and, behold, in the centre 
of a dense circle of eager turbans and tarboushes and of 
wagging tongues, are two perspiring men, screaming at 
one another and snarling like hyenas. I imagine that 
the words that explode into the air are about the 
same as of old : ' Woe to thee, thou vilest of men ! 
thou misbegotten wretch and nursling of impurity ! ' — 
the terms being modified, no doubt, and, if need be, 
expanded to produce the full corrosive effect of modern 
invective. 

These Eastern people are still as they always have 
been, very extreme in their methods of expressing 
emotion. The least quarrel between lovers, in the ' Arabian 
Nights ' stories, causes the man to at once fall into a fit, 
and the lady, as being the finer organism, to display a 
series of highly finished convulsions which are maintained 
with spirit for days. In extreme cases the distressed 
Juliet may, after slapping her face, ' roll about on the 
floor like a serpent.' Men often weep until they become 



THE CROWD 



253 



insensible, or until ' the world looks yellow.' A damsel 
in great trouble will confide to a friend that ' her liver is 
broken in pieces.' The appropriate ritual to be observed 
on hearing of the death of a relative may be gathered 
from the following formula set down in the book of tales : 
' And when my master heard my words the light became 
darkness before his face, he was paralysed and the 
strength of his back failed him and he rent his clothes and 
plucked his beard and slapped his face and threw his 
turban from his head and ceased not to slap his face 
until the blood flowed from it.' With this somewhat 
heating ceremony appropriate expressions are to be 
employed, while it is also essential that the bereaved 
man should, as soon as convenient, repair to a dry 
road or path in order that he may throw dust upon his 
head. 

It is not only in the expression of wrath, of love- 
sickness, or of sorrow that the folk of the East are 
excessive. Demonstrations of pure affection are carried 
out with alarming emphasis, for is it not recorded in 
the stories told to the Happy King that a certain damsel 
' gave El-Amjad a kiss that sounded like the cracking of 
a walnut ' ? 

Besides the men and the women and the boys and 
the girls are the animals that form a part of the crowd 
in the bazaar — to wit, the line of camels, the horses 
with gay trappings, and the donkeys that are laden with 
many things, from an ancient and toothless hag who 
spurs on the animal with her bare heels, to a dead sheep 
or the noxious panniers in which the town refuse is 
conveyed away beyond the walls. 



254 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



As notable as any of these are the dogs — the pariah 
dogs. They are to be found everywhere in the town, but 
mostly in the open streets — a miserable band of outcasts 
and beggars. The pauper dog, the abject, cringing, 
homeless loafer, the dog not only without a master but 
without a human friend, is a kind unknown in England, but 
here he wanders in his hundreds. Of what breed these 
dogs profess to be I cannot say. They are merely dogs. 
Some few are black, but the majority appear to have been, 
in happier times, brown, and to have been changed to a 
jaundiced yellow partly by being bleached by the sun, 
partly by the anaemia of misery, and partly by the cover- 
ing of dirt which clots their coats. They all seem old and 
hungry, while all are thin and very tired. A few of them 
are lame or are covered with sores, while the greater 
number of the forlorn pack are mangy or have weak eyes. 
They are pitiable to look upon not only on account of 
their infirmities but because they are so very unhappy. 
There is just a trace of the look of a dog left in their 
eyes, but it lacks the glow of comradeship, of confidence 
and of bonhomie which makes lovable the countenance 
of the dog who lives among friends. 

One episode I remember that no one would wish to 
see again. One of these miserable vagrants, a mere 
phantom of aching bones, is watching a man while he 
eats a roll of bread. The dog shivers with excitement 
and expectancy, his mouth waters, he is so hungry that 
he can hardly contain himself, his bleared eyes become 
almost dog-like again, there is coming back into them a 
memory of the old, world-long friendship between the 
man and the dog. He even pricks up a torn ear, holds 



THE CROWD 



255 



his head on one side, wags a bone of a tail, and is very 
nearly a generous-hearted, man-adoring dog once more, 
when a kick in the face from a heavy shoe sends him 
staggering into the gutter, a snarling, mean, malignant- 
minded outcast. 



XXX 

ATTAR OF ROSES 

The gardens of Damascus are full of roses ; the damask 
rose takes its name from the city, while among the 
strange and ancient things still manufactured in the 
town is attar of roses. As my wife and I wished to 
purchase some of this perfume, we were taken by the 
dragoman to a certain merchant who was to be found in 
a fragrant corner of the bazaar. His shop was full of 
pleasant things, things agreeable to smell, to eat, and to 
look upon. The merchant was a handsome, staid, and 
venerable man who conducted his business with great 
solemnity and made of a common transaction a pictur- 
esque ceremonial. He had piercing black eyes and a 
grey beard trimmed with the utmost nicety. He was 
tall and very thin. On his head was a turban of white 
and gold cloth folded around a crimson skull-cap. He 
wore a mouse-grey waistcoat of abnormal length, the 
same being edged with innumerable buttons. Over the 
vest was a long, mouse-grey, academic robe lined with 
brown fur. He was so dignified and courtly a man that 

to buy of him seemed to be little less than purchasing 

256 



ATTAR OF ROSES 



257 



a cake of soap from the chancellor of a university arrayed 
in his full robes of office. 

The merchant sent for two stools and motioned us 
to sit down in the roadway before the shop. This we 
did with as much awe as if we were about to take part 
in some occult rites. He then handed each of us a lump 
of sweetmeat, as if to keep us quiet, and in a moment we 
felt that we were about ten years old. From a gap in 
the wall he drew out an ancient box which he opened 
with a curious key. If a smoke had come out when the 
lid was raised, and had turned into a genie, I should 
hardly have been surprised. In the box was something 
wrapped up in silk. He proceeded to unwind it with 
precision, and in time revealed a glass bottle full of what 
appeared to be tallow. 

The day was cold and the dragoman explained that 
attar of roses became solid at a low temperature. The 
dragoman was our connecting link with the outer world, 
and from him I had ascertained (in a whisper such as 
would be proper to a question asked in church) that the 
attar was sold by the drop, and that the price of each 
minim was equal to about three-half pence. I could 
no more have dared to discuss halfpence with this grave 
Arabian than to have asked an archbishop in his vest- 
ments for a penny stamp. I whispered that I wished 
to have a hundred drops. 

The merchant now produced a candle, and beckoned 
to him a boy who appeared to emerge from the earth 
like a familiar spirit. Without a word the boy took 
the candle over to a charcoal fire burning in a shop on 
the other side of the way, and brought it back lighted. 

s 



258 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



The old man then proceeded to warm the bottle over the 
candle in order to melt the contents. It was an inter- 
esting process. The candle was not visible to us as we 
sat — the shop was dark, being almost like a cave in a cliff, 
so that the fine, sharply cut features of the old man were 
illumined as if from some crucible fire. His face and 
the delicate feminine hand that held the bottle stood out 
against the gloom with a supernatural glow. He became 
at once an Eastern alchemist. Strange reflections were 
thrown upon the wall, the shadow of the turban took the 
form of a giant head, wondrous things appeared on the 
shelves that I had not noticed before, while curious 
flashes of light played over the bottle as he rotated it in 
his hand. The bottle might have held the Elixir of Life. 

The silence of the old man and his intense watching 
of the vial became almost oppressive. At last the attar 
was melted, and then, standing erect in the faint light 
of the recess, he proceeded to drop one hundred drops 
into a tiny bottle that he produced — as he produced all 
things — from one of the invisible cupboards with which 
he was surrounded. This was also a solemn process, 
for, as each drop fell, he counted the number in Arabic, 
' wahid, tnein, tlateh, arbaa, khamseh, sitteh, saba.' 
He rolled out the words as if they were the words of an 
incantation, and it was with some sense of relief that the 
last utterance was reached — ' miyeh,' one hundred. 

The business part of the ceremony was completed 
by the dragoman, who dealt coarsely with francs and 
even with centimes. For my own part I felt that this 
cabalistic seance could only be appropriately concluded 
in the coinage of the ' Arabian Nights ' — namely in golden 



ATTAR OF ROSES 



259 



deenars or in handfuls of dirhems. As we made other 
purchases the impassive dragoman demanded a bill — 
a bill from an alchemist ! I herewith append the docu- 
ment, which was written upon blue paper and dried 
with sand. I am sometimes doubtful if it is really a 
bill and if it is not more probably the formula for the 
Elixir of Life. 




S 2 



XXXI 

THE GREAT MOSQUE 

There is only one accredited or standard ' sight ' in 
Damascus, and that, as Mark Twain would observe, 
' is easily avoided.' It is the Great Mosque of the 
Omeiyades. It stands in the centre of the town, upon 
the site of that house of Rimmon which was the place of 
worship for all people in the days of Naaman the Syrian. 
Here also was erected — so tradition avers — the altar 
which filled King Ahaz with amazement when he came 
to Damascus to meet Tiglath-pileser, king of Assyria. 
The altar was so wonderful in its pattern and its work- 
manship that Ahaz had a drawing made of it, and from 
the detailed plan a replica was produced by Urijah the 
priest. This beautiful house of Rimmon fell into ruin and 
was replaced by a Roman temple dedicated to Jupiter. 
Some remains of the Temple of Jupiter can still be seen 
in the form of fragments of massive walls that look as 
old as the rocks upon the hillside. More than that, there 
is a portion of the west wall of the present mosque which 
is attributed ' with a tolerable amount of certainty ' to 
the house that King Ahaz visited. 

At the commencement of the fifth century the Roman 

260 



THE GREAT MOSQUE 



261 



temple was replaced by a Christian cathedral, which 
church 300 years later (a.d. 705-715) was converted into 
a mosque of exceptional magnificence. Unfortunately 
this splendid structure was destroyed by fire in 1069, 
was again burned down in 1400, and was finally laid 
waste by a third destructive fire as lately as 1893. In the 
last conflagration two treasured articles vanished in the 
smoke, to wit, a book and a human skull. The book 
was one of the four original copies of the Koran, the 
skull was the fleshless head of no less a person than John 
the Baptist. With the sacred bones disappeared also 
the exquisite shrine in which they had been preserved. 

It will be gathered, therefore, that the present 
mosque is modern. A few relics of the old glory remain 
in the form of beautiful gates with bronze-plated doors, 
an ancient fountain dating from a.d. 1020, and some 
traces of the superb decoration which made the venerable 
house illustrious. Possibly the most fascinating features 
in the building now are the three minarets, which are 
fine specimens of oriental architecture, and which, in 
elegance or daintiness, could hardly be surpassed. 

One would be prepared to find that the janitor or 
seneschal of so august a building as the Great Mosque of 
the Omeiyades in Damascus would be an imposing and 
stately person, clad with all the insignia of authority. 
As a matter of fact he is a meek and shrunken man who 
receives the visitor in bed, for the unfortunate official is 
bedridden. We found him lying, just inside the Great 
Gate, on a low, wooden bedstead which might have been 
as old as the original mosque. In the matter of bed- 
clothes the invalid was buried beneath a heap of blue rags, 



262 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



over which were laid two or three canvas sacks such 
as are met with in granaries. Finally, in the place of the 
quilt or ' eiderdown ' of modern times was a piece of 
Indian matting apparently lifted from the adjacent floor. 
No well-trained nurse, with an orderly mind, could 
have approved this method of bed-making, nor of the 
general arrangements of the sick room. The head of the 
invalid was wrapped up in that kind of blue cloth the 
butchers use, so that it looked like a piece of meat ; 
while over this blue wrapping was a great brown cowl. 
The porter had evidently been warned by his medical 
advisers to avoid a chill, for there is no doubt that the 
main entry of a mosque in the winter is draughty. On 
entering the gate we assumed a sympathetic, bedside 
manner, but it was unnecessary, for the alertness with 
which the sick official gathered in the miscellaneous 
coins we handed him could not have been exceeded by 
a Monte Carlo croupier. The money, together with a 
banana which he was eating, he put under the bed- 
clothes. Being infidels and heretics we were compelled 
to place felt slippers over our boots before we could 
enter the shrine. These slippers the invalid insisted 
upon applying himself, while to help him in this service 
we placed our muddy feet, one after the other, in his 
bed in obedience to his direction. 

The present mosque, being not yet twenty years old, 
has little that is admirable about it except its great size. 
The immense white court, with its colonnade, its fountain 
pond, and its many-coloured crowd of idlers and wor- 
shippers, is very picturesque. The mosque itself is on 
the lines of a basilica, with nave and aisles and rows of 



THE GREAT MOSQUE 



263 



pillars crowned with Corinthian capitals. The building 
is bare and unfurnished-looking. It haunts the memory 
by reason of the numerous lamps and chandeliers of 
fulminating vulgarity which hang unabashed from the 
ceiling. The modern decoration is nerveless and tawdry, 
while some of the windows are filled with coloured glass 
which would outrage the conservatory of the paltriest 
suburban villa. 

There are some unusual features in the precincts of 
the mosque, notably a curiously dirty house in a court- 
yard of trodden earth. The hou e is a house of much 
mystery. It hangs over a pond, being supported in that 
attitude by two very ancient and beautiful pillars which 
must have belonged to the original mosque. It conveys 
the impression of a lame and unclean beggar leaning upon 
two crutches of delicately carved sandal-wood. 

Near to the house of mystery is a pretty garden full 
of roses, with a fountain in it, and a pergola which can be 
no other than a joy of the earth in the month of June. 
In the garden is a little building, very quaint and friendly- 
looking. It has the aspect of a summer-house, being a 
retreat of consummate peace. In reality it is a sepulchre, 
for it contains the tomb of the terrible Saladin, that hard 
man of arms who was the hero of the Second Crusade. 
The tomb is of white marble, carved in panels and 
decorated with a border of primitive design in black 
and gold. It is covered by an exquisite shawl, while 
above it hangs a Damascene lamp of perfect workman- 
ship. Some glorious blue tiles line the walls of the 
chamber, and in the windows is ancient coloured glass 
very delicate in tint. There is nothing in the little room 



264 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



to suggest the fearsome warrior. Indeed the quietness 
of the place, the childlike garden, the roses, the splashing 
fountain, and the hovering pigeons would make one think 
that beneath the marble lay the body of the lady who, 
for a thousand and one nights, prattled her fancies to the 
Happy King. 

Scarcely less interesting than the mosque of Damascus 
is the great Khan, the principal inn or caravanserai of 
the city. Here are stored the strange things that are 
brought to Damascus from indefinite parts of the world. 
Here the camel caravans, that have crept across the 
desert from Bagdad and from lands of the East still 
more remote, unload and rest. Here is the journey's 
end. 

The Khan takes the form of an immense, cathedral- 
like building, very lofty, very solemn and, at the moment, 
very still. The roof is made up of a series of domes 
which are supported by enormous square pillars. Both 
the pillars and the walls are built of black and yellow- 
grey stones disposed in alternating horizontal lines of 
considerable boldness. Around the base of each dome 
is set a circle of arched windows, rilled with innumerable 
discs of yellowish glass. It is through these windows, 
as through the clerestory in a church, that the rays of 
the sun stream into the colossal building. This method 
of lighting has a magical effect, due to the dead black 
shadows on the one hand, and, on the other, to the 
gleams of gold which shoot across the mist like a flight 
of arrows. 

In the centre of the court is a vast stone basin of 
water. Here the camels drink, here the travel-stained 



THE GREAT MOSQUE 



265 



men wash their faces and their feet, and here the mer- 
chants dip up water for the making of coffee. High up 
in the walls of the building are galleries with pointed 
arches and stone balustrades, while at many a point 
and many a level will be barred windows that open into 
cavernous storerooms. The whole of the floor is occu- 
pied with bales of goods, with sacks full of coffee, and 
bags full of dates, with sugar bags, with barrels of olive 
oil, with bundles of crackling hides, and with a medley 
of uncouth packages, the contents of which are hard to 
tell. Here and there are gigantic scales of primitive 
pattern. They are large enough to weigh an ox, and are 
of a type that has remained unaltered since the days 
when things were first ' weighed in the balance.' Round 
the wide entry half-naked porters — the descendants of 
the memlooks of ancient days — are shifting sacks and 
bales ; in quiet corners turbaned men in long robes sit 
smoking or drinking coffee, while in sleepy tones they 
discuss the state of the market. 

Across the gateway of the Khan there hangs, in a 
formidable festoon, a heavy iron chain. Its height 
above the ground is such that it will just allow the man 
of average stature to come in, but it prevents the entrance 
of the laden camel or of the man with a burden on his 
shoulders. 

There is some romance about the beginning of things : 
there is even a deeper sentiment about their ending. 
Here at this gateway is a place where things end. Here 
is the goal of the caravan, the end of the journey. Day 
after day, for weary weeks, the one object clear in the 
eyes of every tired man on the march is the gateway of 



266 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



the Khan at Damascus and within it the shadow of great 
peace. No place can provide a more picturesque concep- 
tion of the journey's end or more graphically symbolise 
the close of the travail of human life. The long-pondered 
gateway is at last in sight, the chain is lifted, while under 
the archway stalks the leading camel and the footsore 
man who, for many a long mile, has tramped at the head 
of the caravan. The little white-walled town out of 
which they filed at sunrise a month or two ago is almost 
forgotten. Much softened, too, is the memory of the 
sullen march from every dawn to every twilight. Less 
harsh is the thought of the blazing sun, of the aching 
limbs, of the many alarms. 

Here at last is the end — water and shade, safety and 
a couch for dreamless sleep, with thanks to Allah that the 
work is done. 



XXXII 

A TRAGIC JOURNEY 

If our arrival at Damascus was attended with too little 
circumstance, our departure from that place was attended 
with too much. Apparently in other and holier days 
there have been difficulties in the way of leaving the 
city. St. Paul, it may be remembered, departed from 
Damascus in a basket which was lowered from the 
top of the city wall into the ditch. We should have 
preferred this method of leaving the town to that which 
we came to experience. 

It was our intention to proceed from Damascus to 
Beyrout and then take a steamer to Port Said. Un- 
fortunately the Beyrout-Damascus railway had long 
been blocked with snow and was still buried beneath 
accumulating drifts. Determined inquiries as to when 
the line would be clear led to no more precise information 
than that it would be open ' soon.' ■ Might it be clear 
by to-morrow ? ' ' We hope so/ ' Might it be blocked 
for another fortnight ? ' ' Oh, assuredly.' As Damascus 
is a comfortable place to stay at, as the interest of the 

city is inexhaustible, and as the bulk of our luggage was 

267 



268 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



at Beyrout, we resolved to tarry in Damascus until such 
time as the snow had melted. 

At this juncture another difficulty arose. Great num- 
bers of pilgrims from Mecca were pouring into the city 
day by day. Most of these were proceeding northwards 
to Beyrout, but were detained for the same reason that 
detained us. Damascus, large as it is, was becoming 
inconveniently full, and then among the beleaguered 
pilgrims cholera broke out. Whether the cholera would 
vanish ' soon,' like the snow, or whether it would stay 
and spread so that the place would be darkened by the 
shadow of death, none could tell. As a matter of fact 
the cases proved to be very few, the epidemic to be 
limited and indeed trivial. Before, however, that happy 
fact became known in the bazaars it was pointed out to 
me, in a way I was unable to ignore, that if the cholera 
did spread it was just possible that the city might be 
placed in quarantine, when none could leave it except 
by the road to the burial-ground. I was therefore 
advised to return by train to Haifa while yet there was 
time, and, after collecting the stray baggage, to embark 
at that place for Port Said. 

Now the distance from Damascus to Haifa by rail 
is only 176 miles. The line is down hill for a great part 
of the way, while the Hauran and the Jordan valley, both 
of which are traversed, are level plains. Yet in spite 
of this the journey occupies a whole day, ' from morn to 
noon, from noon to dewy eve.' There was a good deal of 
oriental vagueness about the train. It was said to leave 
Damascus at sunrise, but I gathered that the actual 
astronomical moment was determined not by the sun 



A TRAGIC JOURNEY 269 



but by the station-master. If that official had had a bad 
night the sunrise might be seriously delayed. If, on the 
other hand, he had awakened early and was in high 
spirits he might declare that the sun was up, while the 
night was still at its blackest, and incontinently start 
the train on its way to the coast. To catch a train of this 
illusive character requires some forethought, so, in order 
to meet all contingencies which might arise from the 
state of the station-master's mind, it was arranged that 
we should be called at 3 a.m. The process of awakening 
having been carried out with the noise of a bombardment, 
we had a meal termed breakfast at the exceptional hour 
of 3.30 a.m. and left the hotel, chilled and confused, at 
four in the morning. 

It was a fine starry night, but very cold. The drive 
through the city was full of interest, for a sleeping town is 
always curious. Save for a few prowling dogs the streets 
were empty. Every house was barricaded. I can 
imagine that the streets, with their overhanging upper 
stories, looked as the streets of Old London must have 
appeared at night at the time of the Great Plague. Here 
and there a light shone in an upper window, where one 
might suppose that it lit a sick-room and a plague-stricken 
man tossing on the bed. Here and there we passed a 
watchman carrying a lantern. He moved listlessly as 
would a man in a town where there were but few living 
people left to watch. On the roadway, in front of certain 
of the shops, a porter, wrapped up in rags, was lying. 
He might have died of the plague and have been deposited 
in the lane by his friends. More horrible-looking was a 
watchman sound asleep in a chair, in front of a house, 



270 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 

for he was so limp and so askew that he seemed to have 
been sitting dead in his chair for hours. Another man 
asleep on a pile of corn sacks, with his arms outstretched, 
his mouth open, and his head rolled to one side, looked 
the picture of death. There were lights in courtyards, 
suggesting that the household was in distress and that 
the servants were sitting up watching. Two lean men 
were warming their hands over a fire in a blind alley. 
If this were in reality plague-smitten London I should 
take them to be the men who at dawn would perambulate 
the streets to remove dead bodies in a cart. 

We were at last clear of the town and out into the 
vacant night, when a man suddenly emerged from the 
gloom and, with yells and waving of arms, motioned us 
to stop. We did, and were immediately enveloped in a 
perfect cyclone of shrill speech. He was too fluent for a 
highway robber, but it was not until the gust of words 
had subsided that it became known that he was a philan- 
thropist. It appeared that, owing to the rains, a culvert 
beneath the road had given way, leaving a ditch into 
which a cab horse had fallen during the night and had 
broken its leg. It was to save us from the ditch — upon 
the brink of which we were already standing — that the 
man of words had kindly interposed. 

Some way farther along the blank road we came to a 
stockade of posts, where we stopped and, as instructed, 
got out. This we were told was the station, although 
so far as anything visible was concerned we might as well 
have been in the centre of the Sahara. Apparently there 
is something occult, or even sacred, about a railway 
station in Syria, for neither carriages nor other mean 



A TRAGIC JOURNEY 



271 



things on wheels are allowed to come within a certain 
respectful distance of the presence. We stumbled after 
the dragoman across some very uneven ground in the 
direction of a solitary light. This light, poor as it was, 
revealed the corner of a small, low, stone building pre- 
cisely like a miner's cottage in Cornwall. The building 
was the station. The light came from a lantern placed 
on the ground in front of a sleeping man who was sur- 
rounded by a bank or entrenchment of bread. Probably 
no conception of the railway terminus of the capital of a 
country could be more remarkable than this. In place 
of the usual immense fabric and the vast dome of glass 
and iron was a miner's cottage, with a lantern on the 
ground by the side of a sleeping man surrounded by 
bread. 

The time was now 4.50 a.m. Further investigation 
showed an empty train standing derelict at a little distance 
from the stone cottage. Between the latter and the 
train was a slope of very bumpy ground such as is met 
with around houses in course of erection, and this we 
concluded would be the platform. It was occupied by a 
number of large bundles which proved to be men wrapped 
up in blankets and asleep. Similar bundles were propped 
up, in an unsteady row, against the wall of what we now 
knew to be the Central Station of Damascus. These 
sleeping men were pilgrims from Mecca. They were 
on their way to the coast, as we were, but they were 
taking no risks as to catching the train. They knew 
something of oriental railways and their habits, and by 
sleeping on the platform between the booking-office 
and the actual carriages they evidently felt that the 



272 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



train could scarcely creep away without their knowledge. 
The men who were asleep on the ground about the 
miner's cottage were by no means all the intending 
travellers by ' the early train.' Close to the building 
were a number of tents full of silent human beings whose 
feet projected here and there from beneath the canvas. 
There had been a camp fire in the centre of the bivouac, 
but it had evidently long died out. It was apparent now 
that the man with the lantern and the bank of bread 
represented the refreshment-room. The buffet was not 
yet open, for the baker was still wrapt in his dreams. 

Our coming was an event of moment, for we awoke 
the slumbering station. But for us the passengers, the 
station-master, the ticket clerk, and the porters might 
possibly have slept until noon. We woke the first 
series of men accidentally by falling over them and by 
treading on their bodies. They arose in panic, dreaming 
no doubt that the train had gone, and proceeded to rouse 
their friends and to aimlessly drag their luggage about. 
In a few minutes we witnessed what was no less than a 
resurrection scene. We found the terminus in a state of 
silence and the ground occupied apparently by dead 
men. Almost immediately these bodies rose from the 
earth, took up their beds, and walked. In a while out of 
the camp of tents poured several scores of pilgrims to 
join the shuffling crowd. All of them seemed confused, 
as would be a like body of men on the resurrection 
morning. 

It was the train now that afforded a surprise. It 
consisted of three closed vans — labelled, as we perceived 
later on, for eight horses or forty men — a third-class 



A TRAGIC JOURNEY 273 

corridor carriage, and a like carriage with first-class 
compartments. The carriages were in darkness and 
apparently sealed up. But pilgrims began to beat on 
the doors of the goods wagons with their hands, when, 
to my amazement, they opened and out of each poured 
no fewer than forty sleep-muddled Moslems. These 
devout men were in fact making exceedingly sure of the 
train by sleeping in it. Some of those who were released 
from what must have been a chamber of asphyxiation 
began forthwith to clamour at the doors of the third- 
class carriage, when, behold, that structure in turn pro- 
ceeded to give up its dead, for out of its doors stumbled 
or fell more than enough men to fill it, I should imagine, 
twice over. The man-producing powers of the place 
appeared to be now exhausted, for the crowd already 
amounted — as was afterwards made clear — to over 150 
souls. But this was not all, as was proved when an 
excited man attacked the first-class carriage which had, 
up to this moment, exhibited no sign of life. He beat 
violently upon the walls and doors of the same, screaming 
the while ' Aboo-Shihab, Aboo-Shihab.' The man who 
made this onslaught upon the irresponsive carriage was 
apparently connected with the railway. He not only 
screamed and kicked the doors with his feet but he 
thumped the windows with his fist. For a long time there 
was no response to this vast outburst of noise ; but finally 
a sleepy man, whom I supposed to be Aboo-Shihab, 
opened the door (which he had locked from the inside) and 
stepped to the ground like one in a trance. He was 
followed by many others, all of whom were evidently 
railway men who, not wishing to miss the starting of 

T 



274 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



the train or to be late to their work, had wisely slept 
on the field of their labours. 

Up to this moment the stone cottage had exhibited 
no evidence of human occupation. It still remained 
silent and dark in spite of the fact that the dragoman 
had been hammering upon the door with an umbrella 
for some time. Possibly the inhabitants of the building 
would have remained lost to the world for the rest of the 
day had it not been for the actively minded man who 
had awakened Aboo-Shihab. This enthusiast, at 5.15 
a.m., seized a bell and rang it like a demented person 
for a considerable period. The effect produced was 
marvellous. The pilgrims began to cry aloud and to rush 
to and fro like people in a burning house. As each man 
dragged his belongings with him the platform became 
a place of danger. There was evidently a belief that 
the train was starting at once, although there was no 
engine attached to it, nor was there even a sign of one ; 
so they began to climb into the third-class carriage and 
the vans as if they had but few seconds to spare. The 
bellringing, however, had an effect upon the little stone 
house, for in a while a light appeared, and later on 
bolts were withdrawn and the door opened. I was 
anxious to have a peep at the station-master, the man 
upon whose word the rising of the sun depended, but he 
was as difficult to discover among the buzzing crowd as 
a queen bee in a swarm. Consequently I never saw 
him — a circumstance I shall always regret. " 

After a while the pilgrims became calmer again ; 
they even strolled about, chatted with one another, 
bought bread of the baker, and generally behaved as 



A TRAGIC JOURNEY 



275 



people of leisure to whom railway travelling is rather a 
bore. At 5.30 a.m., however, the awakener of Aboo- 
Shihab seized the bell again and rang it for his very life. 
The effect was again astounding. The loitering pilgrims 
were once more electrified. They once more made a 
rush for the carriage doors as people rush to the exits 
of a burning theatre ; they blocked the doors, they 
trampled upon one another, they fought to get in, while 
those who found any attempt at entry impossible 
flitted to and fro on the platform as folk deprived of 
reason. 

Near about 6 a.m. the bell was rung for the third 
time, but the pilgrims had not yet recovered from the 
last shock, so beyond a general shudder it produced no 
visible effect. As a matter of fact the platform was 
deserted, every man was already in his place, the engine 
had been coupled on, the baker had sold all his bread, 
had blown out his lamp, and could be seen wending his 
way towards the city. The dawn was appearing. It 
would seem as if the ringing of the bell had awakened 
even the sun. The light fell upon one of the most 
forlorn -looking railway stations I had ever seen, upon 
the deserted camp, upon the ashes of the fire, and upon 
a wide drift of litter that was indescribable. As soon 
as the bell had ceased, the train, without further cere- 
mony, glided out into the mist, and we knew that the 
sun was at last at liberty to rise. 

It is desirable to note — in connection with what 
happened later on — that next to the engine came the 
three closed goods vans, each containing about fifty 
pilgrims, and that it was followed by the third-class 

T 2 



276 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



corridor carriage which held no fewer than forty more 
devotees from Mecca. At the end of the train was the 
first-class carriage in which we and our dragoman were 
the sole passengers. The pilgrims were Russian Moslems, 
men of a marked Mongolian type of face, who were clad 
in heavy coats, one coat being worn over the other, while 
the outer garment was peeled off, on occasion, to make 
a praying carpet. They carried with them a good deal 
of untidy baggage, varying from battered German 
trunks and sailors' sea bags to bundles in blankets. 
With the same were associated such odd articles of 
luggage as lamps, jugs, and cooking pots, with, above 
all, the inevitable samovar which they clung to as if 
it had been a sacred image. 

As has already been said (p. 200) the descent from the 
tableland to the plain is by a mountain railway of con- 
siderable length and of no mean degree of steepness. 
We came to about the worst part of the incline at 2.30 in 
the afternoon. The line at this point follows a rocky 
defile. The road, which is very narrow, is represented 
by a ledge cut on the side of an almost vertical cliff. 
Above the line is the precipitous face of the hill, while 
below, at the foot of the great wall of rock, is the river, 
converted into a torrent by the recent rains. At this 
somewhat hair-raising spot the engine was proceeding 
very slowly, when we suddenly felt a shock which I 
imagined was due to the carriage being struck by a 
falling rock. There followed immediately a second blow 
like to the first, and then I became aware of the fact 
that the train was off the line. Before I fully realised 
that there was very little margin for a manoeuvre of this 



A TRAGIC JOURNEY 277 

kind we came to a sudden stop. I jumped out and 
made my way to the front of the train. On arriving 
there I was astounded to see that both the engine and 
the tender were missing, and, looking down over the cliff, 
I saw both these vehicles in the river. Apart from the 
roar of the stream everything was so quiet that these 
essential parts of the train might have been lying in 
the water for weeks. The engine was upside down and 
was almost entirely submerged in the muddy water, the 
wheels alone being visible above the flood. The tender 
was the right way up, but the water reached to the level 
of the floor, while it was empty of every particle of coal. 
The drop from the line to the river bed was about forty 
to fifty feet. 

We were relieved to see two men— the driver and the 
stoker — crawling out of the river. Their escape from 
immediate death was due to the fact that the engine, 
in turning over in its fall, had thrown them on to a slope 
of stones, on to just such an incline as forms the talus at 
the foot of a mountain. The officials on the train im- 
mediately went to the assistance of their comrades. 
The approach to the water's edge was difficult, and still 
more difficult was the conveying of the injured men up 
an adjacent slope. The stoker, who was a Turk, was 
suffering a good deal from shock, was badly cut about the 
head and face and much bruised elsewhere. The engine- 
driver, a Bulgarian, was unhappily in a worse plight, 
for, in addition to superficial injuries, it was evident that 
one of the abdominal organs had been ruptured. Both 
of the men were placed lying down in the compartment 
next to ours. They were in great pain, but fortunately 



278 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 

I had with me a medicine case and a flask of whisky. 
After two doses of morphia they each expressed them- 
selves as much better. The stoker began to regain his 
pulse, but the poor engine-driver, although free from 
pain, showed no amendment, and it was evident that, 
as no operation was possible in this wild ravine, his 
case was hopeless. 

As to the cause of the accident no light was forth- 
coming, but it was quite clear that the carriages had 
not been struck by any falling rock as I had supposed. 
The first of the three goods vans full of pilgrims was 
wholly derailed, the front wheels being within eighteen 
inches of the edge of the precipice. Had not the coup- 
lings broken the disaster would have been terrible to 
contemplate. The front part or bogie of the second van 
had left the rails, but the hind wheels still held to the 
metals and so saved the whole train, after the couplings 
had given, from running headlong over the cliff, for the 
incline of the road was considerable. The third van 
and the two carriages were not derailed. 

The pilgrims turned out of the train in a languid 
and lethargic mass and crawled vaguely about the line. 
They contemplated the engine in the river with an air 
of weariness. They were so little disturbed from their 
tortoise-like calm that one might have supposed that an 
episode of this kind was a common occurrence. The 
journey from Mecca had been to them a succession of 
wonders, and this was but one of many strange things. 
If a railway bell had been rung they would have been 
thrilled and alarmed, but the dropping of an engine 
with two men into a river was not a matter for emotion. 



A TRAGIC JOURNEY 



279 



Their first care was to set the samovar going and then to 
glide down to the river to wash. 

I may say that during all this time it was raining hard. 
It had rained steadily since daylight, and further, I may 
add that it rained with equal perseverance all night. 
In due course, namely at 5 p.m., a relief train came up 
from the direction of Haifa. It consisted of trucks 
enough to take the pilgrims and of a guard's van. The 
process of transferring the baggage was very slow, owing 
to the narrowness of the way. On the river side the 
train was within eighteen inches of the edge, so that it 
was dangerous to pass on that part of the road with heavy 
trunks ; while on what may be termed the land side was 
a deep, stone-lined trench between the line of rails and 
the cliff. There was a choice, therefore, between falling 
into the river on the one side, or into the stone crevasse 
on the other. A special difficulty arose in connection 
with the transfer of the injured men. The stoker could 
be helped along between two of his comrades, but the 
driver was unable to stand. It so happened that on the 
train was a solitary Bedouin who possessed a very strong 
and ample cloak. I proposed that the driver should be 
placed in the cloak and carried between two men along 
the narrow way as if he were on a stretcher. It was 
explained to me, however, that he was a Moslem and 
that he could not be carried lying down because it would 
be ' unlucky ' and a portent of death. He must be 
carried, his co-religionists decided, upon a man's back. 
I protested earnestly against this inhuman procedure. 
I appealed to the patient as well as to his friends, but all 
was in vain ; so I witnessed the horrible spectacle of a 



28o THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



heavy man with a ruptured intestine being carried along 
a very shaky road on another man's back, while he was 
held precariously in place by a third. I made the poor 
fellow as comfortable as I could on the floor of the guard's 
van, on a bed of coats and cloaks, and was gratified to 
find that he slept a little before we came to the journey's 
end. He was a man of admirable fortitude and courage, 
who never uttered a sound of complaint, and was only 
distressed by the fear that he was giving trouble. 

We left the scene of the accident at 5.30 p.m. As 
there was no available carriage on the train my wife and 
I rode in the guard's van, sitting on bags on the floor. 
It was a very dreary journey, for we were destined not 
to reach Haifa until 2 a.m. on the following morning. 
The hours seemed to be interminable. I never looked 
at my watch without being convinced that it had stopped. 
The night was not only dark but very cold, while the 
pattering of rain on the roof of the van made for melan- 
choly. To increase the dreariness of the situation there 
was no light in the van until a candle was obtained from 
the pilgrims. It was stuck in a bottle and placed on the 
floor. It gave a sorry illumination to a sorry scene — 
a bare van with people sitting or lying on the floor in 
company with a dying man and another who was 
grievously injured. I am inclined to think that we 
should have been better without the candle, for there 
is a negative relief in absolute darkness. 

When we were two or three hours distant from Haifa 
a passenger carriage was attached to the train in which 
we completed the journey. It was at this point that 
we met certain prominent officials of the line who were on 



A TRAGIC JOURNEY 



281 



their way to the scene of the disaster. There were 
some six of them — all, I believe, Turks. They very 
courteously came to see me in the guard's van, and 
civilities and cards were exchanged through the medium 
of the dragoman. I was wishing that I could speak 
direct to these gentlemen, when one of them came 
towards me, and, holding out his hand, observed with 
fervour, ' Oh, what a bally country ! ' It was a somewhat 
unusual introductory remark, but, assuming that the ad- 
jective employed had a condemnatory meaning, it was 
not entirely out of place, for the night was dark and cold, 
it was pouring with rain, we were without food or the 
possibility of obtaining any. I was, however, so delighted 
to meet a person who spoke English that I grasped this 
gentleman very warmly by the hand and told him how 
pleased I was to meet some one I could talk to. To this 
he replied, ' Oh, what a bally country ! ' I agreed with 
his views as to the immediate country, but, wishing to 
change the subject, said, ' This has been a most unfortu- 
nate accident.' To which he answered, ' Oh, what a bally 
country ! ' I then tried simpler sentences, such as ' Good 
evening,' ' Are you not wet ? ' but on each occasion he 
replied with the criticism, ' Oh, what a bally country ! ' 
I then found that, with the exception of this curious 
sentence, he did not know a single word or syllable of 
English. I am convinced that he had not the faintest 
idea of the meaning of his speech. I imagine that he 
had been at one time associated with an English railway 
engineer who had given vent to this expression so fre- 
quently that this courteous, well-intending Turk had 
learnt it like a parrot. As he stepped out of the guard's 



282 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



van into the rain I said, ' I am afraid you will have 
a very trying journey/ to which he answered, with 
a smile and a polite bow, ' Oh, what a bally country ! ' 
Thus we parted without further exchange of ideas. 

We reached Haifa at 2 a.m. and got to bed at 3 a.m., 
having been ' up ' exactly twenty-four hours. The 
engine-driver was removed to the excellent and admirably 
equipped German hospital in the town. I went to see 
him early next morning. He was conscious, but quite 
free from pain, and was rapidly nearing the end. His 
wife was with him. He smiled, as an old friend would 
smile, when we shook hands, for there was this bond 
between us — that I had been with him on the train. He 
nodded as I went out of the room. It was to show that 
he knew that he was really saying good-bye. He died 
a little while after I left the ward. 

On the day following this gloomy episode we were 
relieved to see the Austrian Lloyd steamer come into 
Haifa and to hear that our luggage was on board. The 
steamer was due to start for Jaffa and Port Said at about 
five in the evening. All seemed well, but it was not all well. 
There were other troubles ahead. It was evident that a 
storm from the south was brewing, and as experience of 
the landing at Haifa was fresh in our minds we resolved 
to get on board the boat before the sea gathered strength. 
So we embarked in the morning, while the weather was as 
yet moderate, and stepped on to the deck of the steamer 
with considerable satisfaction. Unfortunately the storm 
increased every hour until it attained alarming pro- 
portions. It will be noteworthy as the most severe gale 
that struck the Syrian coast during the winter of 191 1. 



A TRAGIC JOURNEY 283 



Several ships were driven ashore, while the havoc made 
of the beach houses at Port Said was deplorable to see. 

Mount Carmel offered a certain amount of shelter 
to the ship, and in an ordinary gale the anchorage would 
have been secure, but this was not an ordinary gale. We 
were hanging on to two anchors, and were doing well until 
about 7.30 in the evening, when one of the steel hawsers 
snapped, leaving us with one anchor only and the wide 
beach of Acre under our lee as a place to be wrecked on. 
The boat was well found and the captain an exceptionally 
able officer. He did the only thing that was possible. He 
hauled up the remaining anchor and steamed out into 
the open sea. We then had definite experience of the 
process known and flippantly talked about as ' steaming 
in the teeth of a gale.' Without going into any detail it 
would be fitting to describe the night as a fearful night 
during which no one could have slept for a moment. 

On the following morning I ventured out on deck 
to look upon one of the most desolate scenes in the 
world — a grey sea in a gale. The force of the wind 
was still extreme. ' The world was nothing but an 
immensity of great foaming waves rushing at us, under a 
sky low enough to touch with the hand, and dirty like 
a smoked ceiling. In the stormy space surrounding us 
there was as much flying spray as air.' 1 Here in this 
lamentable scene was to be read ' The burden of the 
desert of the sea.' 

It was eleven in the morning when I came on deck. 
It was then possible to make out in the wild haze a point 
of land just abreast of us. I asked a sailor what land it 

1 Youth, by Joseph Conrad. (New Yorki 1903,) 



284 THE LAND THAT IS DESOLATE 



was. To my horror he replied ' Haifa.' So, after steaming 
ahead for fifteen hours, we had done no more than just 
keep abreast of the place we had started from. At seven 
in the evening the wind abated, and at noon the next day 
we entered, with much relief, the harbour of Port Said. 

It was not until we were actually ashore at Port 
Said that we felt safe — safe from the possibility of being 
asked to visit another sacred site. 




L«r & Co. 




Xondon: Smilh, Rldnr & Co. 



INDEX 



Abana, River, 210, 218 
Absalom, tomb of, 1 1 1 
Acre, 18, 167 
Ain-es-shems, 30 
Akir, 27 

Andromeda, legend of, 14 
Annunciation, Church of the, 182 
' Arabian Nights,' 222, 228, 237, 

240, 241, 247, 253 
Ashdod, 28 
Athlit, 157 
Attar of Roses, 256 

Bashan, Land of, 202 
Beggars, 57 
Belus, River, 168 
Bethany, 87, 130 
Bethesda, 108 
Bethlehem, 117 
Bethsaida, 193 
Bethshemesh, 30 
Bittir, 34 

Boaz, country of, 127 

C^esarea, 156 
Calvary, 68, 70, 83 
Cana, 189 

Capernaum, 192, 193 
Carmel, 159, 165 
Chapel of St. Helena, 81 
Chorazin, 193 

Church of the Annunciation, 182 
Church of the Holy Sepulchre, 66, 
74- 81 

Church of the Nativity, 120 
Country of Palestine, 128 



Damascus, 208 

and the ' Arabian Nights,' 222, 
228, 237, 240, 241, 247, 253 

antiquity of, 208, 221 

arrival at, 205 

bazaars of, 231, 256 

dogs of, 254 

El Meidan, 207 

Great Khan of, 264 

Great Mosque of, 260 

hospital at, 227 

houses of, 224 

people of, 243 

position of, 208 

railway, 268 

rivers of, 210, 218 

road to, 198 

St. Paul at, 226 

streets of, 216, 221 

view of, 213 
David's Well, 118 
Dead Sea, 146, 149 
Deborah and Barak, 174 
Delilah and Samson, 30, 32 
Desolation of Palestine, 128 
Dome of the Rock, 90 
Dorcas, House of, 16 



Easter at Jerusalem, 77 
Ekron, 28 

Elisha's Spring, 139 
Endor, 179 

Flowers in Palestine, 22 



286 



INDEX 



Galilee, Sea of, 191, 192 
Garden of Gethsemane, 102, 105 
Gath, 28 
Gaza, 15, 32 
Gethsemane, 102, 105 
Golden Gate, 100, 103 
Golgotha, 68, 70, 83 
Gordon's Calvary, 68 

Haifa, 155, 282 

departure from, 282 

landing at, 160 
Harosheth, 173 
Hauran, the, 202 
Hermon, Mount, 153, 205 
Holy Sepulchre, 66, 74, 81 
Horns of Hattin, 191 

Jaffa, 4 

environs of, 21 

landing at, 7 

siege of, 17 

Simon's house at, 12 

Tabitha's house at, 16 
Jericho, 130 

siege of, 142 
walls of, 139 
Jerusalem, beggars in, 57 

Church of the Holy Sepulchre, 
66, 74, 81 

Easter at, 77 

first view of, 38 

Gethsemane, 102, 105 

Jaffa Gate, 39 

Jews of, 51 

Jews' Wailing-place, 113 

Mount of Olives, 85, 103 

plan of, 43 

pools of, 108 

road to, 15, 21, 34 

streets of, 47 

tombs of, 110 

Via Dolorosa, 53 
Jews of Jerusalem, 51 
Jews' Wailing-place, 113 
Jezreel, 175 
Jonah at Jaffa, 10 

birthplace of, 188 



Joppa — see Jaffa 

Jordan, the River, 146, 199 

Kishon, the River, 168, 173 

Ladder of Tyre, 170 
Lake of Gennesaret, 191, 192 
Lazarus, tomb of, 131 
Leaf Fountain, 98 
Lydda, 26 

Magdala, 194 
Mary's Well, 185 
Maundeville, Sir John, 1, 14, 168 
Moab, Mountains of, 142, 151 
Mosque El-Aksa, 99 

of Omar, 90 

of the Omeiyades, 260 
Mount Carmel, 159, 165 

Hermon, 153, 205 

Moriah, 43, 90 

Nebo, 142 

of the Beatitudes, 190 
of Olives, 85, 103 
Tabor, 177 

Naboth's Vineyard, 175 
Nain, 178 

Nativity, Church of the, 120 
Nazareth, 179 

road to, 172, 187 
Nebo, Mount, 142 

Olives, Mount of, 85, 103 
Ophel, 43 

Palestine, desolation of, 128 

flowers of, 22 

tourists in, 23 
Philistines, 25 
Pisgah, 142 

Plain of Sharon, 21, 23, 26 
Pool of Bethesda, 108 

of Siloam, 109 
Port Said, 2, 284 

Rachel's Tomb, 118 
Railway accident, 276 



INDEX 



Ramleh, 27 

Rimmon, house of, 260 
Ruth, country of, 127 

St. George, Monastery of, 136 

tomb of, 26 
Saladin, tomb of, 263 
Samson, 30, 32 
Sea of Galilee, 191, 192 
Semakh, 200 

Sharon, Plain of, 21, 23, 26 
Shunem, 176 
Sidon, 170 
Siloam, 109 
Simon, house of, 12 
Solomon's stables, 100 

Temple, 93 
Sorek, Valley of, 30 
Stone of Unction, 74 
Sulem, 176 



Tabitha, house of, 16 
Tabor, Mount, 177 
Temple of Solomon, 93 
Tiberias, 195 

road to, 187 
Tomb of Absalom, 1 1 1 

David, no 

Lazarus, 131 

Rachel, 118 

Saladin, 263 

the Kings, no 
Tyre, 170 

Valley of Dry Bones, 35 

Sorek, 30 
Via Dolorosa, 53 

Wailing-place, 113 



THE ENE 



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